Snowshoeing near Portland

[bruckie]

Howdy folks,

 

I'm looking for good places to go snowshoeing around (i.e. within two hours of) Portland. Looking for something relatively flat, good scenery, and 4-8 miles round trip. Any favorites?

 

¡Gracias, amigos!

[scheissami]

Nice loop you can do just before Ski Bowl on 26. There's a pullout with a bridge crossing a creek. This area accesses Tom, Dick, and Harry peaks. You can do a loop around the lake (I forget the name) and if you want some vertical can bag the peaks themselves. Not sure of the exact mileage. The peaks themselves are susceptible to potential avy but a good portion of the loop is in the woods.

 

Also you can do some snowshoeing on Hood itself. Check out the Tilly Jane area. Not really that flat, though.

 

 

[JBo6]

Shameless plug, but stop in at Winter Fox in Sandy, first shop on the right, brown wood building, we're nice people and know some stuff. That said, the place Scheissami references, Mirror Lake trailhead currently has no parking, because ODOT, or whoever pushed snow into that area when clearing the roads. White river is pretty flat and you can go as far as you want. Trillium lake is groomed, but a lot of people still go there to snowshoes, and is a loop around the lake, with one steep hill down to the lake.

Barlow pass is cool, and you can hike to either frog lake, or twin lake from there, or if you continue down 26 can access them from other trailheads.

[gslater]

Another option is to go east on 26, then take 35 toward Hood River. Park at the Clark Creek SnoPark just past the Hood River Meadows entrance to Mt. Hood Meadows. The trails leave the SnoPark and head toward the mountain, and are criss-crossed by trails heading toward HRM.

[DavidHiers]

Trillium Lake is nice.

 

This pdf shows the area pretty well.

 

http://www.trilliumlake.com/trilliumlakecabins.pdf

 

 

[rbw1966]

Tons of stuff off of hwy 35.

[Mtguide]

He's referring to Mirror Lake. From the snopark on Hwy 26 it's about a mile and a half up to the lake. From the lake to the top of TD&H is about another 1.5 mi. If you stay out from under the peaks and away from the runout slide paths you should be OK. Check the USGS Government Camp 7.5 min quad which shows the summer hiking trail. It's just about completely free of avy hazard, easy grade, smashing view of Hood to the north and Jefferson to the south.

 

A shorter jaunt is to go up to Ghost Ridge,which is on the trail that takes off from the Barlow Pass snopark going south to Twin Lakes and the Frog lake snopark, or you can also do the Buzzard Point/ Beaver Marsh trails as a loop if you have a limited amount of time and still want some nice views.

 

Also, pick up a copy of an excellent map titled "Mount Hood Ski and Snowshoe Trails", published by Mark H. Wigg, 2007.Cartography and graphics by GeoDataScape are beautiful, all the trails are there. A big improvement to the earlier "Mount Hood Ski Trails" map published in the early 90's. You can get them at The Mountain Shop, Oregon Mt. Community, etc.

 

It's also a good idea to always take the USGS quad for the area you're going to. Mt. Hood North and Mt. Hood South in the 7.5 min. size (1:24,000)will pretty much cover it, sometimes some of the adjacent quads if you're going outside of the area covered by those two.

[rbw1966]

oh yeah--and if you are on snowshoes, please for the love of god, do not walk on the ski track if one is already there.

 

Thanks