• Rating: Difficult
  • Activity: Hike
  • Distance: 9 miles round trip
  • Time:

Why this trail doesn’t see more boots is a bit of a mystery, though it may have something to do with the three-thousand-foot elevation gain. Ridgelines littered with pink rhododendrons (in bloom this month) and views of five volcanoes, as well as the Three Sisters, make this one of Hood’s hidden gems. And that’s to say nothing of the surrounding forty-five-thousand-acre Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness, which, having never been touched by a chain saw, unfolds like an uncharted pine- wood ocean—one we’re quite happy to have all to ourselves. For now.

ROUND TRIP: 9 miles

NEAREST TOWN: Welches

DISTANCE FROM DOWNTOWN: 45 miles

PACK: 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Portland; Green Trails Map No. 493; Northwest Forest Pass ($5)