Day: September 10, 2016

It was quite cold and windy all night and it was hard to sleep, but the wait for breakfast was worth it.  And most of the days hiking was quite exceptional with lots of good views of Mt Hood as we circled around it.  It may not have been a big mile day, but it was a full day.  And Kevin says you knuckleheads at Tipples better not be running the course backwards tonight.

We had planned on getting up at 6:30 so we could be packed and ready to roll before the breakfast opened at 7:30.  So I start rolling around exactly at 6:30 and I find Kevin is already packed up and ready to go.  He got up at 6:00 and was ready to roll.  I got ready as quickly as I could and we wandered down to the lodge to charge phones and get some coffee.

We got to the dining room line just as they opened and got seated near a window.  The valleys all around us were rolling with clouds in an undercast day.  The buffet once again did not disappoint.  I did not have any pastries last time, but did on this visit and they were quite exceptional.  We had our fill and got back to the campsite to get our packs and get rolling.  We set off at about 8:45 waddling down the trail with full stomachs.

The trail circled the mid base of Mt Hood to the west.  We weaved in and out of gullies and canyons sometimes with bare rock and sometimes in thick pines.  It seemed like every twenty minutes there was another spectacular view of something.  Every time we thought we had left.Mt Hood we would somehow get another view of it.  It will probably take a week to get away from this thing.

We took the alternate trail to Ramona falls since it was close by and were not disappointed.  It was a very tall waterfall and cascaded all over the place.  We took an extended break there to eat and take in the view.  It was quite crowded with lots of day hikers from a nearby trailhead.

We found a campsite at a road crossing that actually had a picnic table so that was a good enough reason to stop.  We talked with two other hikers also camping there and cooked dinner on the picnic table.  This area had rain last night so everything is wet.  Having a nice picnic tabke is a nice convenience.  Taking a week off has gotten me hooked on furniture again.  I need to kick the habit.

After another long day of travel, I’m back at the Timberline Lodge after they had several days of rain but the forecast for the next few days is sunny and cool.  It can live with that.  Just a few days after I left last week and up until this morning, they have had bad weather here with lots of rain and general unpleasantness.

I hopped on an early.flight from Gainesville and made it to Portland before lunch.  But I have company this time.  Kevin decided to try his hand at this hiking thing, so he flew out with me and will hike fifty miles to cascade locks.  We spent the afternoon grabbing lunch, getting fuel for the stove, and getting food for him for the next four days.  We missed the 3:25 bus and then got on the wrong connecting bus from Gresham to Sandy and ended up going back towards the airport.  We got off quickly and ended up taking an Uber to the Sandy transit center instead of waiting for two more busses to get us there.

Once in Sandy, we grabbed.dinner at a local pizza joint then nearly missed the last bus while hunting out for wet wipes.  But we made it in time, with a few minutes to spare.  We made our bus and got to the Timberline before dark.  We immediately set up camp then headed for the lodge for a beer.  The temperature here feels like thirty even though it’s only in the high forties.  I discovered I left my air mattress at.home, so I’ll have to sleep in my fleece to stay warm tonight.