Timberline Lodge to Paradise Park

Day 1, Timberline Lodge to Paradise Park: 4.1 miles

The time had finally arrived for segment two: Timberline Lodge to the Columbia River Gorge. The day started with snafus: The ATM at the Vernonia Sentry was broken and I forgot the second sheet of my filing papers for running for City Council that I needed to turn in before the journey. But Sharon worked her magic on the ATM and Joanne provided a copy of the filling paper that I quickly filled out. That done, Penny and I headed to Karen’s and we arrived just a little late. Ryan’s jalopy was parked out in front so I knew that it would be a threesome this time! As we were all raring to go we loaded up and hit the road.

For Penny’s sake I think we managed to mostly avoid letterboxing conversation during the drive but after the spaghetti sucking and sterile urine conversations I think Penny may have preferred us talking about letterboxing. In the rush to get out of the house I hadn’t eaten breakfast and was happy when Ryan suggested stopping somewhere along the way for lunch. So we stopped in Sandy where we all had burgers and met a lovely threesome of women all named Jane. The Janes were also apparently destined for Timberline and would wind up joining us for part of the journey. Well fed we hit the road again and went up to Timberline.

Soon we were met with a swarm of California Tortoise Shell Butterflies. As we later learned the butterflies periodically have population explosions that corresponds to their food source supply. Dodging butterflies we headed up the Timberline road to the lodge. In the parking lot we met a fine fellow named Ralph who wasn’t talkative but latched onto up group.

We ran the gauntlet of tourists as we threaded our way through the lodge and up to the second floor where we escaped and headed up the maze of trails to find the Timberline Trail, which is also the Pacific Crest Trail for several miles on the south and west sides of Mt. Hood. It was about here, while we were taking photos, that a group of 12 school children passed us. They were college students, and Ryan took bit of exception with me calling them children, but as he is just a wee child himself, that was to be expected. I figure that anyone less than half my age is a child. Penny decided to join us for a bit and we started the hike: Ryan, Karen, and I with our 30 – 35 pound packs and Penny carrying nothing and wearing flip flops. You decide who was the smart one in the crowd. Soon we came to our first water crossing. It wasn’t particularly big, we managed to cross in several jiffies but on the other side we noticed that Ralph was no longer with us (though the Janes were). Penny had seen him on the other side of the stream but he was now nowhere to be seen. We didn’t worry too much, figuring that he had headed back towards the lodge. He was a bit of a flighty fellow anyway.

We continued on and soon met the Little Zigzag Canyon. Penny decided that this would make a good place for her to turn around and after a hug or two, we said our goodbyes.

We soon reached the Zigzag Canyon and its viewpoint of the peak of Mt. Hood. While admiring the view, Ralph made an appearance! A strange one was this fellow: for the rest of the journey we keep running into him. We went down into the canyon and soon reached the Zigzag River, one of our potential hazardous crossings according to the map. It was pretty tame and we easily crossed. This was the point of the trail where the vast extent of the day hikers turn around (if they haven’t already) and we only saw backpackers for the rest of the day. At the top of the other side of the canyon we came to a trail junction where the children were resting. We were happy to see ripe huckleberries but there were very few left for us as the children had et most of them already.

There were two trail choices to Paradise Park at this junction, we waited until the children were on their way and took the other trail. We walked through forest and wildflower meadows and soon rounded a bend in the trail and got our first glimpse of Paradise Park. Words, and even pictures, cannot do it justice. We enjoyed the scenery and then crossed Lost Creek and headed to the campsite. The children had begun setting up their site and we choose a site well away from them. With camp set up and dinner et (washed down with some cider I had brought as a surprize!), we headed back to the meadow to take more photos and wait for the sunset. While waiting a PCT thru-hiker came by and we chatted briefly. Shortly later we spied a buck peering around the corner, probably hoping we’d leave so he could go get a drink from the creek. With the light quickly ebbing, we went back to camp. While bear bagging our food, Karen and I learned that Ryan simply uses his food bag as a pillow. It seems Ryan minored in bear wrestling in college and had no need to be afraid. Karen and I had our doubts, and were glad Ryan had picked a camp spot a little ways off, though still uncomfortable close. We crawled into our tents and day one was over.