Late Summer trip - Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens

Grunschev · Post by **Grunschev** » April 18th, 2014, 8:27 pm

Greetings, all!

I'm planning a trip to the Portland area for late August, early September and am looking for suggestions. I'll be in the area for the better part of two weeks, but will only have time to hike three days, four at the outside.

I hope to find good day hikes on/near Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens. I'm an experienced hiker. For the last several years, I've been hiking 15-18 times a year in Rocky Mountain National Park, with hikes as long as 16 miles. My hobby lately has been "collecting" lakes in the park. I'm generally solo and don't mind going off trail if the destination is worth it. I assume there is no shortage of interesting things to see on these volcanoes. But I'll only get one hike each place so I want to make it count.

I will have to be careful about trailheads, though. I'll be driving a very low-slung sports car, so for the most part I need to stay on paved roads. Speaking of which, if anybody has any suggestions on fun and scenic roads in the area, I'd love to hear them. This includes any routes from Portland to either mountain as well as any suggestions on Oregon roads I might use on the way there or back. Ideally, I'd like to minimize my time on interstate highways. The current plan is to take the long way home, so it would be Portland to Yellowstone. A day there would be the third hike of the trip.

retired jerry · Post by **retired jerry** » April 18th, 2014, 8:34 pm

Drive up highway 26 from Portland. Park at Timberline Lodge. Hike over to Paradise Park - 12 miles round trip - no lakes - nice mountain views. Drive back via highway 35 and Hood River. All paved roads.

Maybe drive up to Johnson Ridge on Mt St Helens.

kepPNW · Post by **kepPNW** » April 19th, 2014, 5:38 am

With your mileage range, Mt St Helens offers some incredible opportunities! But it's almost all on-trail; fines for wandering in some places, due to their desire to preserve stuff. Two ideas for "epic" trips there. First is a loop up Coldwater Ridge to Saint Helens Lake, then back down through some great areas in the blast zone. This one's 16-19 miles without much option for cutting it shorter:

http://www.portlandhikers.org/forum/vie ... =8&t=15865

If you'd like to stretch it to 20, you can start in on the north side of Coldwater Lake:

http://www.portlandhikers.org/forum/vie ... =8&t=13728

Another option is to drive up to Johnston Ridge Observatory, and just do an in/out on the Boundary Trail, going as far as you're up for. Something like this:

http://www.portlandhikers.org/forum/vie ... =8&t=17408

Photos, maps and GPS tracks in all those reports. Happy to help you narrow it down, if you have any questions. If you've never been into the blast zone, any of those will give you an incredible perspective on it. SR-504 from I-5 is paved all the way to the end at JRO.

Grannyhiker · Post by **Grannyhiker** » April 19th, 2014, 7:52 am

For driving: Oregon Scenic Byways http://www.oregon.com/byways

Grunschev · Post by **Grunschev** » April 21st, 2014, 8:00 am

Thanks for the suggestions... keep them coming!

Nice trip reports, kepPNW. Thanks.

pdxgene · Post by **pdxgene** » April 21st, 2014, 8:35 am

IF you are at Timberline Lodge and drive to Hood River then you might as well take the side trip to Lost Lake. It's more or less on the way and well worth it if you like lakes..
It'd be a realllly fun road in a sports car if you could be sure no one was coming from the other direction..

Grunschev · Post by **Grunschev** » April 28th, 2014, 7:45 am

Thanks for the suggestions. When the time comes, I'll post trip reports here, along with links to my blog which will include reports on the river trip and track days.

http://grunschev.com/wordpress/

Grunschev · Post by **Grunschev** » September 21st, 2014, 1:44 pm

Oregon Hikers

Late Summer trip - Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens

Late Summer trip - Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens

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