The initial trail follows a gentle creek for about two miles through a forest that's haunted by ghosts of old growth past. There are hulking burnt stumps, many more than 12 or 15-feet in diameter, scattered all about. The trail then turns and begins a more noticeable climb up to Burnt Lake.
Here, a lone snag stands sentinel over the valley.
As I look over my shoulder at Mt. Hood, I'm hoping the morning clouds will burn off and provide another day just like the day before.
The situation is looking extremely promising by 8am, when I reach Burnt Lake. I decide to forgo a loop around the lake now, and just continue on up the trail to East Zigzag Mountain.
Photosynth of Burnt Lake (zoom/pan about a multi-shot composite)
Hitting one of the first clearings, after turning off on the Zigzag Mtn trail, I see the clouds are again building over Mt. Hood. But the view of Burnt Lake from above is beautiful!
A final push up to the summit of East Zigzag, and then some more photos of Hood and the ever-changing clouds swirling about it.
The summit of East Zigzag offered a few nice wildflower patches. But the descent into the saddle between East and West Zigzag peaks opened up into a meadow full of color!
The saddle itself was just terrible, though, for the mosquitoes seem to have peeked at just the moment I chose to wander through. Kicked into high gear for a couple miles, but couldn't outrun them, so had to admit defeat and pull out the deet.
This area was just exploding in Avalanche Lilies. As well as still melting patches of snow beside the trails.
As the trail passed just under the summit of West Zigzag Mtn, the thunder up around Mt. Hood began to get more and more ominous. A significant storm seemed to be wrapping around the north side and heading pretty much right at me.
I poked around a bit, looking for a trail to the western summit, but couldn't find anything obvious. And between those damned mosquitoes and the thunder, I decided it wouldn't be worth spending maybe an hour bushwacking around to get up there when the views I had were probably pretty much the same right here. The sky was changing by the minute.
Still, Avalanche Lilies and snow patches everywhere! (Only a few actually on the trail, though.)
Next time I'm in that area, I think I'll drop down to Cast Lake, rather than bother with the second summit of Zigzag. I saw a couple of folks floating around down there on air mattresses at 10am! Looked like a pretty nice lake, though I wondered if the mosquitoes were as bad there as in the saddle.
Another trip through the meadow on my way back to the east peak.
By the time I'm back at this summit, the thunder is rumbling every 30 seconds or so just to the left of Hood.
Lots of folks are just now getting there. Until now, I think I've only crossed paths with four or five. Time for me to get down!
Back at Burnt Lake, the winds are picking up, and it's starting to rain. I'd lost that perfect reflection shot that I should've taken on the way up. Ah well...
It rained lightly most of the four miles back to the trailhead, with thunder crackling just overhead. I was glad at this point that I'd timed the hike as I had.
Final stats, courtesy of GPSfly: 14 miles, 4200' EG (2640-4990' min/max).
http://gpsfly.org/gps_map.php?gps_id=1666&w=645&h=440
This was a great hike! I'd highly recommend it. After hitting the east peak, there are numerous options up top. On a clear day, I'm sure I'd have had views from Rainier to the Sisters. (I did see ghosts of Adams and Jeff at times.) The road to trailhead offers about four miles of one-lane cratered gravel, not great, but I've seen worse.
