Mirror Lake and Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain

 

Since the beginning of time, Portlanders have been driving to Government Camp along highway 26 and have driven past a bend in the road, just before the mountain pass summit, and have seen a large number of cars parked at a road siding. At that siding was also a large sign indicating that this was the Trail Head for the hike (or winter snowshoe) to the very popular Mirror Lake. There were always too many cars parked there and the Portlanders never stopped there. It was one of those places that no one ever went to because it was just too crowded (thanks, Dad).  To make matters worse, this stretch of highway 26 is steep, curvy, and has sheer rock wall on one side and treacherous cliff drops on the other. During the winter, the snow and ice build up and it can be an exceeding exciting 10 minutes of driving. This makes parking at this curve less than ideal. 

For a few years, they had closed the corner to parking and you could see people making their way down the side of the road from the town of Government Camp to access the trail head. Usually these people were walking on the other side of the highway road barrier, but in the winter, with the snow pilled high by the plows, they would be walking on top of the piled snow, just a slip away from the highway.

Sometime in the last 5 years or so, without notifying me or seeking my approval, the NPS put in a brand new parking lot up near Ski Bowl (right at the start of Government Camp) and re-routed the trail to be away from the highway and join up with the old ‘historic’ trail about a mile up the mountain.  How did I not know about this? The old trail head is all NO PARKING and the sign is gone and the old trail is completely blocked, so don’t even think about it.  The new Trail head is a large parking lot and a very nice 2 seater pit toilet. The first quarter mile of the trail is paved and you could walk down it with your Aunt May for a lovely stroll in the woods. I think I would advise against a wheel chair unless it had good brakes. 

I think that is a cedar stump. Just saying.

So there it is. If you have a Northwest Forest Pass or a Old Geezer For Life Card, you can park in the lot and have access to this wonderful hike. Fair warning, the place is still crowded. We left Portland around 9:00, got to the Trail Head just before 11:00, and the parking lot was 80% full, on a Monday in late September.  We were not sure what to expect from this hike nor from our knees so our plan was to hike the 1.9 miles up to Mirror Lake and see how we were doing. Hopefully we would continue the extra 1.8 miles up to Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain. (and yes, that is really the official name of the mountain. Look at a map). 

As I noted, the first quarter mile or so is a wide paved and winding trail. This takes you down a little slope through the woods and away from the highway.  When the pavement ends, the trail levels out and you start a sort of meandering way around the mountain over to the intersection with the old trail. They spent a lot of money on this new section. It is wide, with a lot of clearing. There is some indication that there may have been a road here at one time, uncertain. What is certain is the many (at least 8) brand new and well built bridges that go across the many small streams that are coming down the mountain during this little traverse. 

Stump with Standing Hole

The area was, of course, lumbered in the distant past. There are many stumps that show the telltale marking of a hole cut for the boards that the lumberjacks would stand on to get their saw cut up high enough to be above those pesky root systems.  Also, many of the stumps were cedar, but I saw no live cedar trees. Down here near the valley (or gorge) floor the undergrowth is very sparse. There is littered tree branches, dropped from the 30-50 year old trees, everywhere on the ground but very few green plants. Where are the fern and Sallal? Is it too dry? Or has the undergrowth not yet recovered from the logging. Perhaps there is too much snow in this area, we are right next to a ski lift. 

There is also the mystery of the big boulders. Randomly distributed through the woods are these large (cow sized) white rocks that are sitting up high on the surrounding wood mulch. It sort of looks like, 10 years or so ago, someone was throwing boulders with a giant sling shot into the forest. The rocks don’t look like they belong and they don’t look like they have been here for very long. I am thinking that perhaps they broke off from some escarpment up the mountain during the winter and then slid down in the deep snow to rest in this area. They then slowly settled into the mulch as the snow melted. It is also possible that the National Park Service carted them in by Zeppelin and place them here just to be a conundrum to me. They do things like that. Just ask Anna Pigeon.

Once done with the 8 (or so) bridges, the trail heads up the mountain and starts on a set of long switchbacks. There is about 2000 feet of elevation gain you need to pay for in order to see the wonderful view from Tom, Dick, and Harry and this is the first down payment. Lots more views of very majestic tree stumps. 

Mirror Lake is sitting at the top of these switchbacks. It is a little round pond, really, that sits in a small floating valley at around 5000 feet. Must be lots of snow up here during the winter. There are a number of “Most Difficult” signs, perhaps for Cross Country Skiers, 10 foot overhead on a number of trees beside the trail.  Things get green as you get to the lake. There are suddenly plants in the understory. There is both more water and more sun near the lake. The trail splits at the lake. There is a loop around the lake and on the far side of the lake is the continuation of the trail up to TDH mountain (I like the initials better). 

And now I am wondering. Is it “Tom, Dick, and Harry” or “Tom, Dick and Harry”. Personally, I think that the extra comma (what is that called? Some city in england) is absolutely necessary. Anyone who says otherwise really doesn’t understand the intense and complicated relationship that Dick and Harry have with Tom. 

Mirror Lake. Why is it called that? It is because there is this great place to stand on the Mountain Slope side where Mt Hood is in view rising over the lake. On a calm morning, the placid waters of the lake make a perfect mirror for the majestic image of the old Volcano. By the way, I think Mt. Hood was used as the model for the Lonely Mountain, the home of Smaug in “The Hobbit”. 

We have decided that we are doing well and have not hiked enough for today. We are going up TDH. Lots of people are going up TDH. In fact, lots of people are coming down. There must be many people that got an earlier start than us and have already enjoyed their view and are not heading home. This would certainly explain all of those cars in the parking lot.  You go up, up , through the woods. Gone is the wide track. This is a single person trail with steeps sides, the kind of trail where you need to look for a good place to get out of the way of the people coming in the opposite direction. There is a section where you have to traverse a big tallus field. This is a area of broken basalt (about bowling ball size) that the trail crosses through. Up close, it looks like a jumble of big rocks, but if you look across the valley (that is now visible as there are no trees) you can see similar rocks slides on the hillsides across the ways. They look like grey sand from any distance. Just a place on the mountains where there is a cool grey shape stamped into the forest on the slope. Oh, look, that one looks like a map of the lower 48. 

This section of trail is a steady up hill climb that puts you to the top of the ridge of TDH. You can tell you are at the top because you will run into a huge pile of head sized rocks. This cairn is around 20 feet in diameter and about 15 feet high. Oh my. What is this doing here? We asked an old white guy who we met hiking (Oh, this is your first time up? He said) and he said that the Cairn (which he pronounced “Cairn”) is just a thing that had grown organically from hikers placing a stone there. Just years of people being copycats and placing one stone every time they did the hike. I don’t know if this is a true story or not but it certainly sounds like the kind of story that I would tell people if they asked me. The pile was a little large for a prehistoric Mountain Rock Beaver den. And you don’t see so many of those this far south. 

Pre-Historic Mountain Rock Beaver Den

Last bit to the top

Now you are on the ridge. Shouldn’t be so steep. Right. OK. So you take a left at the Mountain Rock Beaver Den and you head up the ridge. Lots of stones for tripping on though it is pretty level for the first 15 minutes or so. They you have a last big climb. This is the second steepest section of the trail. This is also a different ecosystem than we have been in. My partner commented that the smell had changed, and she was right. It is drier up here on the ridge. The trees are shorter and stubbier and the undergrowth is different. She said it has the spicy dry smell that she associates with walking through the pines of the high desert, like near Bend. I had to agree.  Up, up, this last short way until you see a big pile of rock shale break out through the trees. This is large flat rocks  jutting up above the trees and is clearly our final destination. Up the trail to the top of the rocks and a large flat area with a number of other hikers and a great glorious view. This is a 360 degree view with Mt. Hood sitting there in all of its late summer splendor (that is, not much snow). 

What can you see? You can see the valley that highway 26 is in that we drove up to get here. You can see Government Camp down there in the valley. You can see the Timberline Lodge, which strangely enough is right at the line where the timber stops and the grey rock/snow starts on Mt Hood. You can see the ski lifts and such further up the mountain. Just to the West of Hood you can see Mt. St. Helens in the background. If you spin around and look south, you can see Mt. Jefferson way over there. All around you is the heavily forested cascades. I understand that people Snow Shoe up here in the winter. That must be a view. 

There were several groups of people up on the top. Everyone is happy and talkative. The people that are not natives want to know what things are. Where is Timberline? Where is Mt. Hood? I have this theory that the further you get from the parking lot the friendlier people get. The real grouches just can’t make it up the hill this far. My partner disagrees and points out some counter examples but I am ignoring that for the sake of this blog.  We meet one couple that asks us to take their picture and then tells us that they got married 2 days ago. They eloped and ran away to Portland to get married and are on their honeymoon and have decided to leave their home in Austin and move here where there are actual mountains. I used to live in Dallas. That is a few hours drive from Austin. I think you can drive from Dallas to Austin and never have a elevation change of more than 17 inches. 

We had lunch sitting on a couple of big flat rocks put there by the NPS just for this purpose. The trip back down was much faster and easier. I like it when they build the trails that way. We did the loop around Mirror lake on our way down, we didn’t have a good mirror because of the afternoon breeze but it was still a great view.  My partners Fitbit said we did just over 8 miles once we got back to the trail head. What a glorious hike.

like my new watch?

Mirror Lake not so Mirrory