mirror lake with tom, dick, and harry mountain in the background
It is May and I went snowshoeing last weekend....I love Oregon. This time my friend, Casey, and I headed to a ridge called Tom, Dick and Harry supposedly named because of its three peaks. Its close proximity to Mt Hood gives the ridge spectacular views of this sleeping beauty as well as the other Cascades so I was pretty stoked.
We started off at a trailhead that circles a small lake (pictured above) near the base of the Tom, Dick and Harry. It wasn't long after this point that the that the trail seemed to vanish. With very few clues to go by we just picked one and marched on. This confusion was soon to increase as the trail progressed and we found ourselves climbing over mounds and mounds of snow that blocked the "path"...the only explanation I can think of for this was that we were the first to walk this trail since an avalanche covered the area.
After walking for several hours seemingly away from the peak, we tried just walking straight up the side. When it got to be later in the afternoon and we realized that whatever distance we covered would be doubled by the trek back, the debate became not about which trail to take, but whether to continue at all. I think we both would have really regretted not making it to the peak so we agreed to walk on.
Much to our surprise, five minutes later....we made it! And to top it all off, the first sight we saw while finishing the climb to the top was Mt. Hood's magnificently beaming snow cap towering in front of us.
mt. hood
Turning around we also saw 4 other Cascade peaks--Jefferson, Adams, St. Helens and Rainier. The clouds quickly rolled in all around us and once the rain started, we finished our summit beers and devised a faster way to get down. Of course, this meant dashing down the ridge's open face, which was warned by my snowshoeing book to be hazardous because of "dramatic snow slides". The time and effort it would take off the hike was too tempting. Of course, we made it out worry free were back at the car in no time.
me and casey at the top with hood in the background
i want to say this is mt. adams...?
st. helens
summit beers...eat your heart out, corona
more hood
