Since with a group of friends we were planning on doing the Timberline trail over the 4th of July weekend, I decided to lead a hike up in the area to gauge snow levels. Looking at the list of hikes I’ve done, I also wanted to do good distance and elevation so I pickled the Horseshoe ridge. Not only this loop has the stats I was looking for it also has the possibility of some pretty spectacular flower displays if you catch it in time. With that in mind, we headed for the mountain. Right from the start we had very nice weather with a cool day and not too humid (which happened last time I was here making the hike difficult). Still, we knew it was going to get hot during the day. The first part was mostly flat in a nice forest until we got the bridge one of the affluent of the Sandy River and found ourselves with no bridge. Looking around we saw several promising logs so some in the group bushwhacked downstream to get on those while others decided to get their feet wet and cross safely to the other side. Once there we started our march up the ridge.Not long after that we found a deer carcass that wasn’t completely eaten by whatever killed it. We guessed it was probably a cougar but that was a clear indication that not too many people had been going over this trail. We sweated quite a bit as we gained elevation towards the view point. Once there we took a lunch break with the always amazing views of Mt Hood and the usual suspects towards the north.
By then the temperature had climbed almost at the same pace as we did so it was pretty hot. Then we resumed our route and things got complicated quickly. Since we turned to the shaded area of the trail we found snow on the ground and some heavily bent branches that made navigation a bit of a challenge. On several turns Zach found the trail to the side while I was looking the other way which was good. Mosquitoes were fierce in that area as well so between swatting them and getting branches off our faces it became a complete workout. We did find some pretty amazing avalanche lilies on the trail like we haven’t seen in a while so that was very nice. Even though we were heading down it got pretty tough at point but finally, after a long while we finally descended enough to get out of the snow. Getting out of the snow and to lower elevation, also meant more heat. On that march, almost all of us ran out of water still with a couple of miles to go. We did pass a water source but didn’t stops as we all figured it wouldn’t take that long to get back to the car. It actually did so we were pretty dry by the end of the hike, but it was a good workout with some pretty nice rewards. Oh, and we figured there was too much snow to do the Timberline trail
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