Grassy Knoll and Big Huckleberry Mtn

[drm]

Here's my addition to the Grassy Knoll collection. It seems that my map was out of date. It showed the trailhead at the jcn of roads 68 and 6808. There was a trail there, but no signage. I took it and a mile and a quarter later, it crossed road 68 again, and there was the main trailhead, with signs and all and 4 or 5 cars.

The hike is still fantastic for flowers.

From the side of the ridge, you can see this large flat area, which is the large lava bed that is next to road 66. It looks like a normal forest from up here, but if you are close, the ground is very rocky. The mountain in the distance is Little Huckleberry Mountain, which oddly is 500 feet taller than Big Huckleberry Mountain


This is a great flower hike - here are a couple of early examples


Bear grass


The Grassy Knoll itself


Indian paintbrush seemed to be the most common




Cold Spring Camp is the only developed spot to camp along the trail


There were decent views of Mt. Adams from many points, this one from Big Huckleberry Mountain was the best of the day


Mt. Hood had been hidden in clouds most of the day, but came out on the way back

[BaileyBoy]

Nice photos, Dean, especially the large lava bed. I've never been about to get a good image of that.
Did you find any snow banks at all on Grassy Knoll, thinking of heading up that way but want to be sure Bailey has an area to cool off since no water until the Spring.

Another question, have you ever hiked into Basin Lakes in Indian Heave from the west? I'm thinking about taking the trail southeast from Falls Creek Horse Camp toward the Race Track but at about 4200' elevation swinging north and east to the lakes.

I know you get around a lot in that area and around Mt Adams so figured you'd know if anyone did.

Thanks, Skip

[fettster]

Looks like you had some great conditions. Thanks for the note about the multiple trailheads as well. Is there a water source near that camp?

[drm]

The map shows a Cold Spring ad Cold Springs camp. It wasn't visible from the trailhead, but maybe if you went downhill a bit there would be something. The only decent water source was a quarter to half mile beyond Cold Springs, so not too far from the PCT junction. I didn't see an ounce of snow. And with the weather coming this week, this is going to be a fully dry hike pretty soon. There is a lot of shade - it is more in the forest than in the open.

I haven't been to the Basin Lakes area in Indian Heaven. Living in White Salmon, I tend to visit east side trailheads more.

[n.bumppo]

There was water a short way down the hill to the right (north) from the Cold Springs Camp when I was there. I assume the spring runs year round.

Dave

[Marsha]

In 2007, in mid-August, we spent 3 hours searching for water in the Cold Spring Camp, we had a Green Trails map showing the spring, trails, etc. There was NO water, not even a muddy pothole, anywhere within 1-2 miles along the trails. We found the spring with large metal drums cut to make basins, and NO water. And basically 2007 summer was really wet, we spent 6 days at Mt Adams, and three of these days it was raining. Plus that was the record mushroom year, also indicating that it was way wetter than usual. When we asked other people at Cold Spring Camp about water their answer was that 'everybody knows that the springs are dry'. We had to go elsewhere to camp, since we had only about 1 liter for 2 people.