Adam Schneider's
digital photos

August 4, 2005: I couldn't find anyone to go with me on this midweek 11-mile trek, so I just went by myself. I started from the Mazama Trailhead (elevation 3420') at the foot of Cathedral Ridge on the northwest side of Mt. Hood; from there it's a very steep mile up the ridge, then a relatively easy 2.5 miles up to the Timberline Trail (5600'), passing a couple of meadows and streams along the way.

After passing the junction with the trail that leads to McNeil Point, I crossed the flower-filled west fork of Ladd Creek and walked around a forested hillside to Cairn Basin. From there, I took the higher (southern) trail toward Wy'east Basin -- stopping for lunch on a gravelly ridge at 5900' -- then looped around on the northern trail to Eden Park (another basin, but bigger and flatter than the other two), where I saw a lot of tadpoles in the streams. It's a little tricky to find the trail on the far (west) side of Eden Park, but if you start switchbacking up a 300-foot rockpile, you're on the right track, and you'll end up back in Cairn Basin.

As with the McNeil Point trail, I recommend William Sullivan's 100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon as a guidebook for this part of Mt. Hood; there are a lot of trails up there.