Two of my buddies and I hiked/ran the Timberline Trail clockwise around Wy'East (Mt. Hood) on Saturday, July 8th. We totaled 40 miles and 9,400 feet of elevation gain, reaching a max elevation of 7,300 feet. We started at 6 am at Timberline Lodge and finished at about 9:45 pm. The bathroom is in the lodge, but the best place to start hiking is from the Salmon River parking lot on the right as you drive in.
Keep in mind that this trip report is written from the perspective of three 25 to 28-year-old men who have extensive trail ultra-running experience.
This is one of the most beautiful and varied trails you could ever hope to experience. Check out my pictures on my Strava post at https://www.strava.com/activities/9416386230! There are many, many snow fields but we got through them without microspikes, and only one of us had poles. A few of them were pretty slow going since I'm pretty cautious whenever I'm one slip away from a bad fall, but none of us ever postholed or fell. However, the biggest reason to bring hiking poles on this hike is for the unrelenting (but very fun!) river fords. I think the whole loop has one bridge (Ramona Falls), so if you're accustomed to the aid of log bridges, expect to be on your own for all of these crossings. The water was generally knee-high, and never much higher, much to my relief. Keep in mind that the water is very cold, fast-moving, and usually not clear enough to see the bottom (thus the want for poles to keep balance). I wouldn't say any particular crossing was the hardest. The most difficult sections were from Ramona Falls to Muddy Fork (which you can bypass on the PCT) and the few miles before reaching Cloud Cap. The Muddy Fork section is labeled as closed on a few websites (and with a temporary sign on the trail), but it's definitely passable, and it looks partially logged out. The reason for the difficulty of these two sections was the concentration of fallen timber on the trail. Outside of that, and the snowfields, much of the trail was very runnable. In a few weeks, this loop will be a bit easier!
Other tidbits about this hike: 4 major cascade volcanos are clearly visible from the trail, not including Mt. Hood. My buddy counted 174 trees we had to step over, which is not including the many trees we had to duck under. The eastern side of the trail feels like the Eastern Oregon/Washington desert, and the western side feels like the temperate rainforest of the PNW. To my knowledge, there's one pit toilet on the whole loop, at Cloud Cap.
Tips: Be prepared for exposure to the sun on the eastern side and take into account how much time and effort downed trees and river crossings will add.
This was a top-tier PNW hike experience, and I'll be back for round two someday, no doubt!
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