Elk Cove and More

My vacation is winding down, so I really wanted a wilderness experience.  As I get older, I seem to have fewer and fewer of them, and that’s a shame.   I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, but yesterday I sought to rectify that absence and headed to the north side of the highest mountain in Oregon.  The drive is long but the hike is shorter and easier than many approaches.

From the Vista Ridge Trailhead, the trail goes through half a mile of typical Cascade forest, then emerges into a charred landscape left over from the Dollar Lake fire in 2011.   The underbrush is thriving, but here are few trees left alive over ten feet tall.  Lots of silvery trunks make for an odd atmosphere, but I find it fascinating.   Once I climbed out of that in a couple miles, the wildflowers started dotting the sides of the trail. I’d worried I was late, but not at all.   Once I hit the Timberline Trail, I had a quick decision to make about finding a campsite.  I chose to seek a new spot in Elk Cove, a big open meadow below the steep slopes of Mount Hood abutted by the massive talus slopes of Barrett Spur.

Once I made camp, I snacked and headed out on a hike to points east.  Three stream crossings later, a couple of which are tricky, I made it to a nice set of rocky slabs above Compass Creek Falls.  It’s hard to get a straight-on view of the falls, because it’s below the trail.  I found a nice flat rock and napped briefly in the sunshine.  Sleeping in the sun feels like vacation.

The flowers along the trail kept surprising me.   Yellow, lavender, red, white, pink, orange.  It’s such a treat to catch the mountainsides bedecked in coat of many colors.  My walk back to camp was uneventful other than starting to see a lot more people.   It was a good day.

My only disappointment was when I realized my camp was too far in the shadow of a massive ridge to see the comet Neowise, but that was a small price to pay for the lovely vista I had while eating a mediocre freeze dried dinner.  An early evening ramble along a user path in the meadows let me see a different perspective of creek and flowers and mountain above.  I took a series of photos and eventually wandered back to my tent feeling intoxicated by the beauty of the area.

I woke early today and headed out, knowing I had business to attend to at home, but also knowing my legs might not be up for another side trek.  I am already thinking about my next visit to the area.