As usual, we had a different combination of people in our group. This time it was 5 people including me. We wanted to start the hike no later than 6:30, but ended up starting late by 10 mts. We started from the Starvation Creek rest area.
It was almost dark and chilly at the start.
There was a bit of moon light.
We started west parallel to I-84 with the sunlight increasing gradually.
It's almost a casual flat surface walk in the initial period and we hit this junction, and promptly proceeded on Mt Defiance TR 413.
Here is the 1st waterfall (Hole in the wall) that we noticed. I am not sure if it will be clearly visible from the freeway, but it's pretty close to the freeway.
After taking few pictures, we crossed the only bridge structure on the trail. It's still an easy hike so far.
Then we hit another junction and proceeded towards TR 413. Now, the flat surface is gone and we are on to narrow trails.
Lancaster falls is not too far from the junction. We took few pictures and walked over the rocks and water (not much water as you could see). 3 of our group moved on a slightly faster pace and I was lagging behind (of course, photos) with another friend who was feeling a bit after lack of sleep for few days.
The other side of the gorge was getting sunlight as we kept going up past the power lines and were drifting away from the freeway slowly. We were slow, but I didn't want to push my friend and paced myself.
Of course, it's an opportunity for me to take more pictures.
A freight train (not sure if you can see it at a quick glance) was on the other side of the gorge.
Now, is the mountain behind the train the Dog mountain?
As we moved up and up, my friend wasn't feeling any better about it. He tried to make adjustments, but wasn't going to help him.
He decided to go back and ensured that he has no problem going down and didn't want to try further and aggravate the issue later.
By this time, we lost about half an hour time with the other 3. Reluctantly, I waved him bye and started my solo hike to catch up with the other guys.
I knew that those guys were going faster, and hence decided to push myself a little and kept going.
Sorry for the blurred picture. This is the kind of a place where I would have at least sat for a break. But, with the goal of catching up with these guys at least at the Scree portion, I moved on. May be next time, I will take a rest here.
It was still a bit cold and there was some wind. The only noise that I heard was the wind from the gorge apart from the ones generated by my walk. There was no one else.
May be after an hour and half or so of solo hike, I found this and gave up on my non-stop hike and sat on it for a minute or may be 45 seconds. And, then I started to walk up again.
Then it was switchback city. As usual, the photos don't do justice to the steepness of the trail. This is like the Heart Break Ridge and may be more.
Another attempt to show the steepness, still won't give a clear picture. My legs were showing little signs of cramp. I had Gatorade and water immediately as I didn't want to have cramps all alone in the mountain with no signs of life nearby.
I started to feel better again and the trail eased up a little bit also. However, I was looking for the wilderness board that I had read in the reviews and seen in the videos. I kept walking swiftly anyways.
At last, I saw the sign board and felt relieved. Also, it had the distance and elevation marked by someone. This gave me an idea that there is only about 250 ft of elevation to the scree portion approximately. I was hoping to catch up with my friends at least here.
Pretty soon, I came to the open scree portion. And, quite surprisingly I caught up with my friends here. They were shocked to see me there as they thought we both would have gone back. I chided them for leaving me alone, but they were in the thought I was going either way with my other friend and questioned why I didn't call them. Cell phone signal was there pretty much all the way, thanks to the towers at the top I guess. But, I had put it on Airplane mode and never attempted to call them.
We didn't have any major discussion as the mountains got our attention from there. The picture quality from the cell phone camera are not great. But, those views were amazing. For the 1st time, I could see St Helens, Rainier and Adams at a time.
Here is St Helens. Lack of snow there didn't help in the quality of the picture contrast either. We were talking about the possibility being on that mountain in few weeks time.
Mt Adams was looking huge and fantastic.
Rainier, the biggest mountain looked to be the smallest one due to the distance and other little ones blocking it's bottom.
After quite a bit of pictures, we moved towards the summit, but pretty soon found a nice place to sit on the rocks and enjoy the views more. I felt like taking some sort of rest after the almost non-stop solo hike for 3+ hrs. Everyone else obliged and we had our brunch/snacks along with the rest with the views of Mt Adams. So, this is the 2nd continuous week of having breakfast, while looking at Mt Adams. Now, I hope to have Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner on Mt Adams one day. As of now, it's in the dreams.
I am glad I took this picture during this break. You will know the reason later.
Another view of Mt Adams. You could see Columbia river at the bottom of the picture too.
After relishing the views, we proceeded towards the summit. There was a junction with one trail splitting to the right with cairns stacked on both sides of the entry point of the junction. We had a small debate on which way to go, and ended up taking the straight route. We met four people coming down from the summit and asked them about the usual stuff. They mentioned about having to cross road twice and the summit should be about half a mile from there.
This is the road that they were talking about. Soon after crossing the roads twice, we could notice the cell phone towers and pretty soon we reached the summit.
In many of the reviews, people said that the views from the summit were disappointing. Some are apparently due to the cell phone towers. But, the views of Mt Hood were fantastic. Again, the cell phone camera doesn't really show the beautiful views we had that day.
Here is the road from the summit. If it has good snow in the winter, do people ski on this?
Another view of Mt Hood from the summit.
We spent about 20 mts at the summit and refreshed ourselves with mini lunch and energy drinks. We met few people there at the summit. Some took the right at the intersection after the scree. Another couple came from the South side of the mountain, and they said it's only 2.5 miles from there.
I called up my friend who went back. He was happily enjoying mini hikes around the trail head and was taking rest in the car.
We wanted to complete the loop instead of going back the same way. The initial stretch had a narrow trail with trees on both sides and Mt Hood in between the trees. It was noon at that time and the pictures didn't show Mt Hood at all.
After few minutes, we hit a boulder section with views of St Helens and a bit of Rainier. By this time it became more hazy and you may not realize Helens is there in the photo unless I tell you. But, it was clear to naked eyes. We were happy to have taken this route to go down.
A glimpse of the boulder section and the top of Rainier. Once again, I was into the tourist mode taking pictures. But, this time my friends wanted to ensure that I didn't stay back too far.
One last shot of St Helens from this spot.
Another closer look (not really close) at Rainier.
After few hundred steps, Mt Adams showed up and more stoppage time was added.
Once again, we found another spot that had views of all 3 mountains. Everyone wanted to take more pictures, besides me.
Here is Rainier and Adams. This was almost like saying bye to the mountains as we knew that pretty soon we will get into the tree line with no views.
After walking down for about 10 minutes or so, we came to the junction with cairns. We took a left here to go down. Taking a right here would take us up to the summit again. We definitely didn't want to do that.
After few minutes, we noticed this board. I missed it while going up, as I was probably behind others and didn't focus. One of my friends said that we have to take a right. I suggested to go down straight instead. He was confident that he saw the board while coming up. So, we went down that way towards Warren lake. Fortunately, he quickly looked at Google map and realized that it's just going to Warren lake. We saw a lady coming down with a puppy and asked her about the direction. She suggested us to go back and take the right at the junction which was where I wanted to go originally. After boasting about my direction sense, we went back and took the right and pretty soon hit the spot where we had brunch and then the open scree area before the tree line.
We were walking in a good speed, but the trail was steep at some places. On one switch back, I was turning back to tell my friend to give some space and lost focus and slipped and fell on my pole and broke it into two. The sad part is that the steep trail just started and I am left with only one pole. I wasn't happy about it one bit.
We had to cross this tree, no issues. At many spots, they had cut the tree to the width of trail, not at this spot.
While me and my friends struggled on the steep switch backs going down, we saw a couple who were doing it with ease, that too without any poles. When I questioned them, they simply said that you get it with lot of practice. Hmmm... not sure how long it will take me to get there.
While I tried to manage with just one pole, I couldn't go too far. So, finally I had to pick a tree branch and use it as another pole. Here is my note of thanks to the pole.
I saw one young lady going up at around 3 PM and still had to cover about 4.5 miles. She didn't have much in terms of food, extra clothing or anything. You can guess how I felt with needing to have 2 poles and big bag full of things.
A sign of what we achieved today.
I noticed it in Hamilton Mountain, and now here.
Yes, I used it.
It was a very good, rewarding (views) work out. I got to do a semi-solo hike for about 3 hrs with just me and the mountain, even though I didn't want to do it that way. We didn't spend too much at the rest area, refreshed ourselves, had some snacks and drinks and left.
Now, I hope that all these preparations end up in a fruitful attempt at St Helens soon. Hope you enjoyed this TR.
