Mount Hood Crater Rock

This has been an extremely low snow year here in Oregon. Pretty much all the snowshoes routes has very little or no snow on it. I still wanted to snowshoe somewhere and gather some snow pictures. 

I decided to go to the top of Palmer lift and beyond on Mount Hood. With weather being in 60F, we decided to start before sunrise to be able to climb on ice with crampons. until we reached Silcox hut at 7000 ft level, snow was slushy even in the morning at 6AM. We were able to walk unto the hut without any special traction devices.

After passing the hut, we were getting into icy conditions and decided to put on crampon. From here on, it was straight up following the ski tracks. It was early in the morning, so ski lift has just started, but there weren't any skiers up on the slope. Ski tracks were being groomed. All in all -- not much of a wilderness experience with snowcats going up and down besides us. 

At 8600feet, we got to the top of the palmer lift and had a long break. I couldn't believe how warm it was that day. After taking few more pictures, It was time to go higher up. Once we reached 9200ft level, we decided to make a traverse towards Illumination rock. That was it for the uphill hike. After stopping for another 30mins, it was time to glissade down the mountain. By this time, most of the snow has turned soft. Glissading down was just as fun as it could be. We were able to go all the down to Silcox hut and after that walking down another 1200feet down to the lodge was the most tiring of all.

In summary, if I were to describe the day in a line -- that would be "Amazing views and extremely warm!". I would definitely do this again sometime later in the early spring and stay somewhere higher up to watch the sunset. Lets see how that goes.

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Indian Point

This was one of my rare solo hikes. I started very early and when I got to the Herman Creek TH, there were may be 3-4 cars parked. One way in, I ran into one older couple at the junction of Gorton Creek Trail and Herman Creek Trail. After having a brief chat, I moved on to Gorton Creek Trail towards Indian Point. I kept seeing two people in front of me, they were ahead of me. Even though I kept a pace of ~2.5mph going uphill, I wasn't able to catch them until I got to the Nick Eaton Cutoff Trail.

Last time I went to Indian point, I missed the unofficial trail section that drops down to the viewpoint.  This time I noticed there were signs on the tree on the main trail, and it would be hard to miss that. After dropping down to the Indian Point, I took a few shots. Weather was foggy and later I realized there was something called "Inversion Effect" in the area - hanging layer of fog in the valley/ water body etc. I wasn't able to get any views towards east columbia gorge.

After soaking in the views, I decided to make a loop via Nick Eaton Ridge Trail. As the weather got warmer, fog started to thin out. One thing about solo hiking is that I get to just keep going and not have to stop anywhere to wait for someone. After I joined the Herman Creek Trail back again, I ran across many people coming towards me - some prepared and some high-heel hikers (with a water bottle and Jeans, totally unprepared, if something were to happen). On the trailhead, parking lot at at least 50 cars parked! Surprising for a day like that. 

Indian Point

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Twin Lakes - Barlow Pass Snowshoe

Nothing too fancy or adventurous here. We started at Barlow pass Sno-park on OR-35. Headed south on PCT. PCT intersects with Upper Twin Lake first and the same trail goes around Lower Twin Lake, comes  back to PCT. This completes a lollipop loop to twin lakes area.

With fresh snow in the area, most of trees looked like snow sculptures. Lakes were completely frozen. There were footsteps on the upper lake, but no one form my group tried to be adventurous. Overall, this was 10 mile loop with 1300 feet of elevation gain.

 
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