[letsgobobby]

We went CW from Timberline. Camps at Sandy River, just east of the McNeil Point Trail takeoff, Cloud Cap, and Meadows. We did the Bald Mountain, McNeil Point, and Eden Park side trips for a total of ~43 miles. All the river crossings were ‘easy’, ie, had rock hops or log bridges well established, and feet never got wet. We used the only map we could find: Adventure Maps Inc Mt Hood Area Trail Map.* I thought it had some errors. The landslide on Yokum Ridge shows on the map as an almost straight up 750 foot climb; on the ground it was just a horizontal scree field to cross. The map also shows the old trail around the head of Eliot, rather than the current steep set of switchbacks down (and up) the sidewalls of the river canyon (about 400-500’ of elevation change in about 1/2 mile). Very heavily trafficked trail, even midweek. The only exception was on Wednesday from about Elk Cove to Cloud Cap when the crowds thinned a bit. Prime campsites were in demand, arriving early in the day helps. Unfortunately along with these crowds came some underwhelming trail etiquette. Failure to yield to uphill hikers; TP gardens; pungent pot smoking in crowded camp areas. But folks are all friendly, sharing a crowded “wilderness” trail 90 minutes from a major urban area. FYI Cloud Cap cg is $21 per night. I don’t know if it used to be $10 for everyone or was/is $10 for hiker sites but the sign says $21 per site. * REI and Next Adventure were sold out of maps. Timberline has a gift shop and I asked the worker if she had any topo maps. She stared at me a second and said, “Noooo...” “Do you know what that is?” I asked helpfully. Pause. “All we have is a map of Mt. Hood with all the trails...”

[olderthanIusedtobe]