Walking Through NW Wilderness

Tatoosh Ridge Hike

Trail Stats - 11 miles RT, 4000 feet elevation gain (cummulative)

On a hot day, some of my friends and two of decided to go explore the Tatoosh Ridge. It was first time for all of us, so we didn't know what to expect. From the trip reports, we knew the start of the trail is going to be extremely steep - gaining about 3000 feet in first 3 miles. We counted the switchbacks going uphill - I think there are about 15 switchbacks. Once up on the ridge, the views start to open up. Soon we came to the junction with Tatoosh Lakes. We decided to push for the summit first. After this junction, Mount Rainer starts to rise above the horizon behind you and the views start to open up in all direction.

After the switchbacks, the trail traverses steep side slope instead of following the ridge line to the summit. This portion last for couple of miles and it is fairly level. After traversing couple of hills, we came to the summit trail junction. Post this trail junction, the trail gets steep again, climbing about 1000 feet in a mile or so. Once at the summit, the views towards Mt Rainer is stupendously gorgeous.

The summit view

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Wallowa Mountains adventure - Eagle Cap Wilderness

We wanted to see the Perseid meteor shower. So instead of driving to some dark place and likely getting surrounded by ton of people, we decided to go backpacking.

We started from Two pan trailhead and hike in 7 miles on East Fork Lostine River trail to get to Mirror lake. After setting up the camp, we went up to summit the Eagle Cap mountain (9572 feet). The views from the summit trail kept getting better and better. Once we got to the summit, we could see the entire Lostine River Valley, Hurrican creek drainage, Glacier Lake and of course the entire lake basin area.

On the day 2, after shooting sunrise, we made our way up tp Glacier Lake. It was just 3.5 miles to the Glacier Pass, but that's a steep trail. It took us about 2 hours to get over the pass and to the lake.

On Day 3, we came out the same way we went in. Overall, it was a pretty warm weekend. Somewhat buggy, but not too bad to take all the fun away. Our total mileage was 27 miles with 6800 feet of elevation gain.

Jefferson Park - Epic Wild Flower Show

This is the first year that the US Forest Service started permitting the overnight use of this area. In the years prior to that I have been here - It was always a competition to get the "allowed" campsite and people coming in late would just camp right on the lakeshores or in the meadows. This year, surprisingly it was quite. We got checked in the evening by the ranger and I also saw ranger asking few campers to leave the park can camp outside the boundary. But none the less - it was good to see the area regulated and enforced.

Now get back to the trip report -

Since this trail never gets super steep at any point, I asked a friend to join in for his first backpacking trip. We started hiking around 11 AM and to my surprise, got to the camp site at 1:30. From the earlier trip reports, we expecting lots of mosquitoes, but since it was a little breezy, bugs never got worse. After setting up the tent and doing a few camp chores, I decided to take a hike up to the Park Ridge. Probably one of the best view of Mount Jefferson. I met few PCT hikers on my way down form the park ridge. Next morning we quickly packed in everything and walked out.

Overall, a very nice and relaxing trip.