Finally Exploring around Mount Hood

After all the festivities of the wedding, we were officially home alone in our trailer in the woods at Camp Creek campground once again. We slept in until 7:30 since we no longer had our central-time-zone visitor waking us up at 5:00. Even though we arrived here four days ago, we were finally setting out to explore things close to home around Mount Hood. With no cell phone service, we couldn't research our options as well as usual. So we were exploring without a definite plan.

Our first outing was a lovely walk beside Zigzag creek. The trail ended at the waterfall.

We climbed to the top for a different view of the water racing down the mountain.

The tortoiseshell butterflies accompanied us all the way along the creek. 

They were experiencing a huge hatch, and we have found them all over Oregon.

Our next stop was going to be a hike to Trillium Lake. But without doing our usual research, we didn't know that this state area was not covered by our national park pass. Rangers were stopping cars to pay the $10 parking fee to hike to the lake. So we did a u-turn and instead headed down a little forest service road to get some great views of Mount Hood and the blue skies we were enjoying this morning.

Without any cell phone signal to guide us, we found that our forest service road got narrower and narrower, with bushes rubbing both sides of our pickup. We weren't sure what we would do if we met someone else crazy enough to drive this road.

Amongst the bushes and brambles, we found these royal purple blooms. But we didn't tarry long admiring them. Denisa was glad to get off that narrow dirt road!

We had noticed a brown sign along the highway, pointing up a road towards Timberline Lodge National Historic Site. Again without researching, we didn't know what that was. But we followed the six mile road that headed steeply into the mountains. Once again, we had to stop to take a picture of the massive view of Mount Hood in all its blue-sky glory. We had wandered into more of God's wonders!

And once again, we had to stop to take a picture of the unusual red berries that were so bright against that Hood Mountain view.

We parked in the big parking lot at the top of the road, to get a look at Timberline Lodge. We didn't know what to expect, but we found a stately old lodge that was built by the WPA in the 1930s.

The lodge lobby was filled with original furnishings that were clearly built on a budget during a national depression.

But they were built by craftsmen that knew how to make things last.

We took a peek inside the Blue Ox Bar. The doorway was made for people Denisa's height--not Mark's. We also checked into the restaurant on the second floor, but the $32 buffet lunch seemed a little pricey. The dinner menu was even pricier.

So we headed out into the backyard for a picnic and a hike towards Mount Hood.

The Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail crossed right behind the lodge, making it an easy place for hikers to stop for a shower and a night in a real bed. A hiker starting in Mexico, would only be 550 miles from the end of the trail in Canada.

The lupines were in full bloom on the side of the mountain in August.

We hiked under the chair lift that was running this morning. We were surprised to see people with skis riding on the lift in August.

That's when we looked closely at the snow on the side of Mount Hood. 

If we zoomed all the way in with our camera, we could see the fuzzy images of a large number of people snow skiing in August! Later we found that there was a 12-month ski club. A requirement for membership was proving that you skied a certain number of vertical feet each month of the year.

Mount Hood is one of those places where skiers can get their summer 12-month ski membership requirements. The snow didn't look great, but the weather for skiing was delightful. We thought there was an amazing number of snow skiers for a Monday afternoon in August.

As we continued our hike, we walked beside the signposts of the winter skiing areas at the foot of Mount Hood. This area was also used for mountain biking in the summer, with bikers (and their bikes) riding the chair lifts and then coasting down the trails.

While we haven't been bothered by the wildfire smoke this summer, it looked like some had blown into the mountains south of us. As we looked south we could see another snow-capped mountain, with the mountain ridges hiding in the smoky haze.

Now that we were home alone, we needed to do some grocery shopping. Along with no cell phone service, this remote area doesn't have many shopping choices. We had to drive to Mount Hood Village to do any texting or blogging or researching hikes. We thought we were finished hiking for the day, but then we remembered the Still Creek Trail that actually starts from our campground. It seemed a shame not to hike it, so we put on our boots and started an evening hike. It began on a bridge over Still Creek. This little creek that made a relaxing bubbling sound as it worked its way through our campground.

Most of the hike was through forest, but we thought the reviews had promised views of Mount Hood. So we kept hiking.

We were glad for views of the beautiful fox glove flowers. So we kept hiking.

The trees here were healthy, and it was so nice to have left behind the areas of the dead trees left from the pine beetles. But we still got no views of Mount Hood, so we kept hiking.

We were glad that our camp host had told us about the delicious orange huckleberries. We didn't take any water on this "short" hike, and the tart flavor of these yummy berries helped to quench our thirst. So we kept hiking.

We finally made it to a ridge, and Mark scrambled to find a tiny hole in the wall of trees. So the only views from the Still Creek trail were of more tree-covered mountains around us--no Mount Hood views. We did get 4.75 more miles of exercise with 833 feet in elevation gain from this evening hike. Between our three hikes today, we totaled 8.5 miles on this day when we finally explored Mount Hood.

We were hungry by the time we hiked back down to the trailer. We stopped to pick some of the lemony sorrel that looks like over-sized three-leaf clovers.

Each leaf looks like a heart, and made a loving salad to go with our dinner. It was a good side dish to our last meal here in the shadow of Mount Hood. It's a beautiful place to wander God's wonders!