After our VERY wet New Years Day hike, my appetite for wet hikes was pretty low. The last week plus has been wet and snowy so I haven’t gotten out (missing my two hikes a week goal!). Today (a Monday) was supposed to be a beautiful day – Kirk had the day off work and since our New Years Day snowshoe trip wasn’t a snowshoe, I proposed hiking Fanton up as far as we could go. We’ve done this trip quite a few times and it is a favorite of mine in the winter. With all the recent snowfall, it seemed like we should have good conditions for a good snowshoe trip.

Oliver was supposed to join us but unfortunately he texted me in the morning that he wouldn’t be joining since he didn’t feel well. Kirk and I headed out – the trailhead for this one is pretty close. I wasn’t sure how far we could get up the road. Originally I assumed we would have to start at the lower trailhead. The lower you have to start, the less the chances you will be able to make it all the way up to the top. Hiking is a lot more exhausting in the snow, with or without snowshoes.

We got to the junction with 4613 and there wasn’t a lot of snow on the road still – I was surprised. 4614 had good ruts n the road (you could tell a lot of people had been driving up here – probably from the weekend), so we kept going – the Fanton trail basically parallels the 4614 road for a few miles, so it is easy to access it at various points. There is an old spur road that has been tank trapped that is about 2 miles up the road that I was hoping we could get to – this is the same spot I started from in late December – it makes it more likely you can get all the way to the top. On a bluebird day like today, we really wanted to get to the top to see the views. Thankfully, we were easily able to make it to that old spur road. Lots of people had been playing around there – someone had driven over the tank traps up up the old spur road recently. There was also evidence of shooting (shotgun shells and brass) as well as sledding. It must have been a busy place last weekend!

We suited up and headed up the trail – while there was 3-4″ of snow on the road, once we got up on the trail, it was completely clear. It wasn’t long before we got to the first landing (the spur road we parked at led up to it). There was some decent views from here today. I did a Peakfinder view which shows all the peaks – this is looking south:

There was a few inches of snow here but it was easy to walk in. Whoever drove up the spur road recently seems to have played in the snow up in this area. There were sled tracks and footprints for a little ways. The footprints soon stopped and we had untouched snow for a bit. The road continues for a ways – the road took out portions of the trail, but it shares its route with the road in places crossing and then joining the road in other places.

We worked our way east – the snow slowly got a bit deeper but the trail was easy to hike without snowshoes. It was not too long before we popped out at the un-named spur where the 4614 road takes a turn to the north – this is the easternmost access point for the Fanton trail. This is what the 4614 road looked like here – we could have driven all the way up here I think!

I was surprised at how little snow there was up there. It was probably about the same as what it was where we parked – but there were good ruts all the way down to the pavement – I’m sure it was probably that way all the way down to where we parked.

We walked out to the landing and looked around a bit. I pulled out my drone and took some video as well as a 360 degree pano shot. More to come on these.

After spending a few minutes on the landing, we packed up and continued up the trail. I think it was from this point where the trail had complete snow coverage (except for a couple spots that had runoff coming down the trail). It wasn’t a LOT of snow, and we saw relatively fresh boot prints heading up from this point. We weren’t sure how far they would go, but it did make it easier to hike without snowshoes since they had broken trail ahead of us. We were guessing someone came up here on the weekend and headed up the trail.

From the spur road, the trail follows an un-named creek, mostly level for a bit. At some point it heads away from the creek and then starts heading uphill to meet the Old Baldy trail. The trail in here was pretty good, but the snow continued to get deeper. At the point where we joined the Old Baldy trail, I stopped to put on my snowshoes. It wasn’t bad, but I thought the snowshoes would make it a bit easier. I’m guessing the snow in that area was probably 6-8″ deep. I donned my snowshoes but Kirk opted to keep his off. Since I was leading, it made it a bit easier for him. Between the existing boot prints (they were pretty determined), and my snowshoes packing down the snow, it made it a lot easier to go without snowshoes.

We soon got to the junction where you head to the left to continue on the Old Baldy trail or go straight to head up to the top of Squaw/Tumala mountain. As an aside, Kirk wondered what “Tumala” meant – I didn’t know so while writing this, I decided to look it up. Tumala means “Tomorrow” or “Afterlife” in Chinook – I found that interesting.

We continued straight and the trail goes thru some kind of open stretches – it was beautiful in the sun – Thor was certainly enjoying himself:

From this junction, it isn’t too far to the top. The trail kind of follows the ridge and then takes a sharp turn to the north. It then goes over a couple of open areas which can be pretty difficult to traverse when there is more snow. Today they were pretty easy – there was 2-3′ of snow in here I think. The trail then pops out onto the 4610-180 spur that you then take up to the top. When we popped out onto that road I was surprised to see that someone had recently driven all the way up here:

There were tire tracks and a few footprints at the parking area (there used to be a garage up here for the lookout – you can still see the foundation). It looked like they drove up here and then played in the snow for a while. There were LOTS of prints heading north on the ridge, but no one had headed south over to the old lookout location:

You could see there was a thin layer of ice on top of the snow. We stopped here and had lunch. After eating lunch, we headed over to the north end of the ridge (which honestly has better views). This was Mt Hood from the north end of the ridge:

I flew my drone again – videos to come. We walked around enjoying the great views and the unseasonably warm weather (although all the snow made it feel colder than it was). While we were on the north side of the ridge, my toes started to get cold – probably mostly from lack of movement. After I finished flying my drone, we went back over to the lookout where we had left our packs, packed up and headed back down the hill.

The trip down the hill was significantly faster than the trip up the hill. We got back down to the junction in the saddle in about 20 minutes and probably another 20 to the junction with the Fanton trail. This is where I took off my snowshoes. We continued down the trail, making really good time until the flat spot before the landing. It was in here where I noticed this beautiful scene – sunshine thru the trees next to the creek:
Creek next to Fanton trail:

A bit farther down the trail we stopped to inspect a tree that had been cut down recently. We weren’t sure why but the thought wsa that it was practice for trail maintenance crews. They cut it down and then cut a trail sized piece out of it, just like you’d do for a trail. That was the only reason we could come up with.

We got back to the landing and continued south. We made really good time and were back at the truck about 3. Kirk had to get back, but it was still early so I asked if he wanted to head up the canyon to see the damage on 224 – the stuff that closed it for a couple of weeks. He said yes, so we headed south on 224. We saw a couple of small spots that had slid along the road, but nothing too bad. When we got to the Sandstone bridge we saw the big blowout – the little creek there has blown out 3 times since the fires – seems like it happens about once a year. I didn’t take any pictures of it since it was all cleaned up, but this is what it looked like when I encountered it in 2022:

We continued into Ripplebrook and after the store but before the bridge, we saw the crazy amount of downed logs that I had seen pictures of – they weren’t exaggerating:

I’m not sure how many logs they cut, but it was a LOT.

We continued up to the bridge and then turned around after that. On the way back, Kirk asked if I wanted to get a quick early dinner – I’m always up for a good post hike feast, so we stopped at the Old Mill Saloon and had a quick dinner. We got him home in perfect time for his evening activities. It was a fantastic bluebird day in the snow! There aren’t many better places to be on a nice sunny winter day than the top of Squaw/Tumala Mountain!