High Rock #266
Jun 12, 2005
- Type of Outing
- Day hike
- Read More in our Hiking Guide
- Hike: High Rock
- Region: South Cascades -- White Pass / Cowlitz River Valley
- Agency: Gifford-Pinchot National Forest, Cowlitz Valley Ranger District
- Trails: High Rock (#266)
- Avg Rating: 3.86
Where do you take your sweetie who has the following criteria for a trip: 1) must be spectacular, 2) must have rock and 3) must be forgiving since it's his first hike of the season. We both decided that High Rock would meet these criterium. My concern was the road condition since an earlier report stated that the south road was particularly nasty. I didn't know if the approach we were taking was the south one, since both looked south to me on the map. Well, I must have taken the north road since the road condition was great (with a few potholes). We just followed the signs to High Rock from Road 52 instead of what our book told us.
We were the first to arrive at the trailhead but soon a young couple pulled up and started up the trail. The trail is a steady up through young beargrass, triliums, paintbrush and avalanche lillies. The skies stayed patchy sun/cloud through our slog up the trail but it kept us nice and cool. We finally reached the lookout where the younger couple thought we had turned around since we took so long to hike up there. The young man told us that the shed up at the lookout was from the days when they brought up supplies by mule. The shed was where they housed the mules. He also told us that you can stay in the shed for a night (with permission). That's a nice to know and probably wouldn't have ever known if we hadn't ran into this couple. We parted ways. Dave and I got up to the lookout (for which I must say scared me since I am sooooooo afraid of heights). Someone had broken into the lookout so there is broken glass at the door. So be careful. There we had lunch looking for Mt. Rainier but never seeing it. The views changed every minute or so with the clouds forming then disappearing through out our lunch. After lunch we headed down as mean several parties heading up. Good day of hiking. My only regret is that my camera's battery died up at the look out. No pictures.
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