In my ongoing goal of hiking at least twice a week, today’s hike was just a pleasure hike – no work. It was supposed to be warm, and summer is quickly disappearing, so I’ve been trying to hike higher elevation
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Four Stars
8/13/2025 – Rho Ridge South – 564
In my discussions with other Trail Advocates, the south end of Rho Ridge has popped up a few times. I’ve hiked the northern section several times in recent years but I haven’t hiked the southern section other than the segment
… Read the rest 8/4/2025 – Baty Butte
Today’s hike was an outing to enjoy the fruits of our labor. A few weeks ago, 5 of us did quite a bit of work on the Baty Butte trail. I thought it would be fun to enjoy the fruits
… Read the rest 7/31/2025 – Bull of the Woods – 550
Today’s hike was pretty simple – just get out in the woods for a bit. Since Thor had his mouth surgery (he got 8 teeth extracted!), I didn’t want to do anything too crazy – I’d been wanting to check
… Read the rest 7/10/2025 – Cathedral Tree Trail – Astoria
Today’s hike was a short one – this was the last day of our family vacation – we had intended to do it the day before but it was raining – we decided to do this kind of on our
… Read the rest 6/22/2025 – Newell Creek Canyon – Fathers Day Hike
This was a late Father’s Day hike – we celebrated Father’s Day a week late due to other conflicts. Everyone asked what I wanted to do and of course the answer was to hike, but since most of my hikes
… Read the rest 6/16/2025 – Cottonwood Meadows Trail – 705
Today’s hike was going to be an interesting one – First, I was going to meet a potential new hiking partner and second, we were planning to do some major work on the Cottonwood Meadows trail. I knew it would
… Read the rest 6/5/2025 – Burnt Granite and Mt Lowe
Today’s hike would be my only opportunity to get out this week due to other commitments. I wanted to find something interesting. After looking at snow levels, I landed on hiking the upper Burnt Granite trail. The original plan was
… Read the rest 5/10/2025 – Cripple Creek and Cache Meadow
Note: The first part of the track is kind of messed up since my phone was in power saving mode.
… Read the rest In my ongoing quest to get out in the woods twice a week since I retired, this was an opportunity
5/2-4/2025 – Owl and Fish Creek Backpack
This was my (more or less) annual backpacking trip with Carly. This was trip #21. This year, since she is in Utah for school, we did a very different trip, one that was very “Utahy”. It was in the southern
… Read the rest 4/22/2025 – Fanton Trail to Squaw Mountain
Today’s hike was one I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I wasn’t sure how much snow we’d encounter so I didn’t know how far we’d get, but things worked out pretty well. I usually hike the Fanton trail
… Read the rest 4/15/2025 – Dickey Creek Trail – 553
Today’s hike was one of my first post retirement hikes. Originally I was thinking about hiking old BOTW, but since it was mid week and I figured no one else would be there, I decided to hike Dickey Creek. I
… Read the rest 4/3/2025 – Riverside Trail
Today’s hike was to celebrate my first full day of being retired. Since I can go out mid week now, I thought the Riverside trail would be a great trail to hike. I had wanted to hike it since it
… Read the rest 3/29/2025 – Alder Swamp
Today’s hike was a “return to the woods” hike. I had eye surgery a couple of weeks ago and was required to take it easy for 2-3 weeks. I haven’t hiked Alder Swamp since last year and I’ve been curious
… Read the rest 12/31/2024 – Tamolitch Falls – Blue Pool – 3507
Today’s hike was one we had been trying to do for a couple of weeks. Nicholas and I had the last part of the year off work, so we wanted to do a hike with Sadie somewhere. We decided on
… Read the rest 11/16/2024 – Shellrock Cache Meadow Serene Lake Loop
Since I’m going to be having cataract surgery this week (which means I will be down for a week or two) and because I didn’t get out last weekend, I wanted to make sure I got out this weekend. My
… Read the rest 11/6/2024 – Baty Butte Trail
Today’s hike was to take advantage of some gorgeous November weather and to burn a vacation day. Zack and I had been thinking about heading up to Baty Butte the weekend before but it looked AWFULLY wet so we decided
… Read the rest 10/19/2024 – Thunder Mountain/Skookum Lake – 542/543
Today’s hike is a milestone – if I’ve done my statistics correctly, today’s hike is my 500th hike/trip! That is pretty crazy! Wonder how long it will take me to get to 1000? It took me 22 years to get
… Read the rest 8/24/2024 – Cottonwood Meadows – 705
Today’s hike turned out considerably differently than expected. The plan was to hike the Cottonwood Meadows trail from the southern trailhead – go up the trail to the northern trailhead and turn around and come back down. We encountered a
… Read the rest 8/15/2024 – Rho Creek – 569
Today’s hike had one simple purpose – to enjoy a beautiful old trail. Little did I realize that it had been COMPLETELY cut out end to end, which only made the day that much better! I haven’t taken much vacation
… Read the rest 7/20/2024 – Fish Creek Mountain – 541
Today’s hike was intended to complete the recon of the Fish Creek Mountain trail post fire. Kirk and I had attempted to complete this trip a few weeks ago but ran out of time. Since the gate at the 4620
… Read the rest 6/22/2024 – Fish Creek Mountain – Side Door
After hearing that there was a way to get up to the Fish Creek Mountain trail relatively easily, I’ve wanted to explore this trail after the fire. Today was the day. We headed out a bit early since I needed
… Read the rest 5/11/2024 – Bissell/Old Baldy 502
The weather today was supposed to be sunny and unseasonably hot. I wanted to get up into snow somewhere, and decided to either do the White Iris trail or the Bissell trail, depending on which we could get to. It
… Read the rest 4/27/2024 – Rho Creek – 569
The plan for today’s hike was to see how far we could get up the Rho Creek trail. The modeled snow depth maps showed no snow at the trailhead and then about halfway up the trail, the snow quickly getting
… Read the rest 4/13/2024 – Fanton Trail
Today’s hike was intended to be a snowshoe trip. The plan was to take the Fanton trail (a favorite snowshoe destination of mine) as far as we could. Kirk had to get back for a family event, so it was
… Read the rest 12/16/2023- Rho Ridge North – 564 – SNOW!
Today’s hike was a spur of the minute hike. I had originally intended to stay home and work on a Christmas present for our granddaughters. The weather was supposed to be beautiful and some recent snow had mostly melted. I
… Read the rest 12/9/2023 – Burnt Granite – SNOW! – 595
We’ve had some cold weather and a bunch of rain, so higher elevations have gotten more snow. Looking at the modeled snow maps, I was hoping we might be able to get up to a last of the season higher
… Read the rest 11/24/2023 – Burnt Granite
The weather forecast was for beautiful sunny weather. I keep thinking that the high country is gone – we’ve had a few snow storms which seemed like they would stick, but the snow melted, and higher elevations have still been
… Read the rest 10/21/2023 – Rho Ridge North End – 564
This trip was just a “get out in the woods” kind of a trip. We were dog sitting the “grand dog” for the weekend, so he joined Thor and I on this trip. I had several ideas on where to
… Read the rest 10/9/2023 – Horseshoe Saddle and Ruddy Hill
Sorry for the small map above – I wanted to make sure I captured the waypoint of the tread I recalled being shown years ago – more on that later…
… Read the rest Today’s trip was planned to be a pretty quick trip
9/10-9/14/2023 – Necklace Valley Backpack
This trip was my annual backpacking trip with Carly – number 20! These are all the backpacking trips we’ve taken:
… Read the rest - 2002-Duffy Lake – Mt Jefferson Wilderness
- 2004-Red Lake
- 2005-Shining Lake
- 2006-Big Slide Lake – Bull of the Woods Wilderness
- 2007-Doris
9/4/2023 – Schreiner Peak
Today’s hike is one I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Kirk suggested we do it on Labor Day. I will be doing my annual backpack trip with Carly next weekend and needed to do some conditioning anyway, so
… Read the rest 8/26/2023 – Rho Creek Trail – 569
Today’s hike was one where I wanted to hike a trail I hadn’t hiked in a while. I was thinking about doing the north end of Rho Ridge but it was forecast to be kind of warm and I thought
… Read the rest 8/18/2023 – Thunder Mountain and Skookum Lake
Today’s hike was a “take Friday off” hike – I planned a short day since we normally babysit the grandkids on Friday. Thor and I headed out early so we could get back early and I decided to do the
… Read the rest 8/2/2023 – God’s Thumb
Today’s trip was a totally unplanned, last minute trip. We were on our family vacation in Lincoln City and we were kind of in-between “things”. Abby stayed at a house in Lincoln City a month or so ago and had
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