snowy hikes in mt. hood.

Today we went on our first snowy adventure of the season!

Last night, at around… seven thirty-ish, we decided, “hey, we should go on a hike because it’s been since… September?!” Life just gets by you sometimes and before you know it, so much time has passed.

We bounced a few ideas around and Michael brought up that he’s always wanted to hike Tom, Dick, & Harry Mountain. So I told him, let’s not even think about it.. let’s just go! It was around eight p.m. when we realized we needed a few things. Michael needed a set of trekking poles because I already have some, and I needed new gloves. We got to REI with about twenty minutes to spare before closing.

We woke up around six a.m. and I made my favorite breakfast for us – lightly scrambled eggs with turkey sausage & spinach and we also made a blueberry-banana-spinach smoothie! This was perfect fuel for this hike.

Let me tell you… this hike was unbelievably beautiful! It is about eight miles long with a gradual elevation change that lead to a frozen lake and ended with a view of *five* mountain peaks (photo below)!

There were these adorable bridges in the beginning of the hike.

Look at that cute smile of his.

Mirror Lake, Mt. Hood National Forest

Me running out onto frozen Mirror Lake and so happy about it.

Checking out Mount Hood back there.

Just the two of us.

Snow hikes makes us happy hahah

Tom, Dick, & Harry Mountain Trail

We made it! We found a rock to rest our day packs and snack for a bit.

Snacks we brought for this hike were:

• Celery with Justin’s honey peanut butter packets
• Milton’s olive oil and sea salt crackers
• CLIF bars
• Sour Patch Watermelon gummies (best thing ever!)

Mount Hood with three (if you can see them) other mountain peaks! The fifth mountain peak we saw was behind us.

Mountain peaks you can see at the top:

1. Mount Hood
2. Mount Adams
3. Mount Rainier
4. Mount Saint Helens
5. Mount Jefferson

Squinty Michael.

Michael was squinting so much at the top because of how sunny it was. We definitely forgot our sunglasses. At one point, he had to pull his beanie over his head hahahah 😋. It was so silly.

This was on our way down the hike.

What a lovely day despite not knowing what to expect.😊 Isn’t that the best when that happens?

The mountain is supposed to snow tomorrow, so we got lucky with a clear view. We were giddy hiking this trail and we were bummed (but definitely tired) when we finished. But! We have a few snow adventures planned this coming week, and we are so looking forward to them. 💙

May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits.
Harley King

an unexpected adventure.

This weekend we were planning to backpack up to a fire lookout in Mount Hood, Oregon. On the way there, we started noticing snow along the forest roads. I always get a little suspicious with road conditions once snow starts to appear, but Michael gets… a little ‘confident’ in his FJ when if comes to a lot road-wise. 😜

When we got to huge snow covering on the road, he pressed the gas and we plowed right through only to get us stuck in about 2-3 feet of snow. It took us an hour and a half to get out because all we had to use was a poop shovel, a skillet, and two hiking poles to plow all of the snow away from his truck. It was exhausting, but so hilarious after it was all done.

 

We obviously had to change our plans last minute, so we looked on google maps and found Timothy Lake was pretty close. There were also campsites you could backpack in!

It. Was. Beautiful.

We had absolutely no service with no one around us. After a stressful week of work and school, it was exactly what we needed to unwind. 

Once we set up everything, we hiked about five-six miles around the lake. We got back to camp right in time to set up the hammock and catch the sunset. 🧡