Scenes from the Trail: Paradise Park

Date: July 4, 2014

Location: Mt. Hood National Forest, OR

This was a lovely though tiring hike involving much trudging through snow which had not quite melted as much by the July 4 weekend as I had hoped.

While the view was lovely as I headed out in the morning, I basically took the wrong way from the outset, missing the trail and heading the wrong way, wondering why there were no trail signs.

Path behind the Timberline Lodge leading to the trails; Mt. Hood summit straight on

Mt. Hood Summit from behind Timberline Lodge

Snowfield near Timberline ski area

View downhill

Animal tracks in the snow

The snow made it even harder to make anything out, and it was only after I had crossed several snowfields and taken lots of photographs of Mt. Hood from several angles that I realized something was definitely amiss. Returning back was not really an option I wanted to contemplate, and so using my GPS device, I took a straight line path in a direction where I expected to intersect with the trail, hoping I would be able to make it out. After a while, I was elated to hear human voices, and was able to make out a group of hikers heading along what was the trail...I was finally on it!

I continued trudging through the snow which lay fairly thick, but eventually the trail descended to lower elevations, and the trail became clear. Continuing on, I reached Little Zigzag Canyon.

Little Zigzag Canyon

View from bottom of Little Zigzag Canyon

Mt. Jefferson

And after that, I walked on and reached Zigzag Canyon (the big one!) down which I descended along a series of switchbacks.

Zigzag Canyon

The Mt. Hood summit was a constant companion along the trail

Reaching the bottom of Zigzag canyon, I needed to cross the Zigzag river, which had a fairly strong current with all the snowmelt. Exercising probably too much caution, I spent an inordinate amount of time strategizing over the best place to cross it, before finally taking the plunge (not quite literally; only my feet got wet), and making it over.

Next came an ascent up to Paradise Park, which looked lovely covered in snow, although I would have preferred the wildflower covered slopes I had seen in photographs :)

Paradise Park: still a lot of snow here!

Close-up of summit from Paradise Park

My hiking pole rests against the trail sign at Paradise Park

I decided not to continue any further since it was mid-afternoon, and I had a lot of trudging to do in the snow to get back...a good call as I realized later. And so I headed back, reaching Timberline Lodge only as the sun was going down.