Up at 5am, showered, then jumped on the Oregon Breeze bus and did the 2.5 hour ride to Government Camp. I asked the bus dude if he’d drop me early at Frog Lake, but that was a no-go. Hey, he just drives the bus man.

After that drop off, I got some breakfast at a local restaurant then waited another 2 hours for the shuttle that takes me uphill to Timberline Lodge. Got there at 12 and packed my resupply box.  There is supposed to be an amazing buffet here, but time’s awasting. Got on the trail at 1.

As a little side note, I think Timberline was the location where the Shining was shot back in the day. I was in a hurry and did not get a frontal shot of the place.

Only thing I knew to expect today was that I’d be doing a lot of downhill. The trail picks up at 6k on the side of Mount Hood, then follows the western side going up and down through gorges. Ton of day hikers out here today. Passed a few overnight backpackers on various climbs today. Surprised how fast I’m moving now.

I did a little figuring when I was coming down. This picture shows where I end up at the bottom of the big downhill. If you look at that second escarpment at the center, that was where I eventually ended up near Ramona falls.

When I got to the river valley and climbed over a bunch of blowdowns, the next biggie was the Sandy river crossing. I ran into a couple trail crew folks, one of whom pointed me to a ford point. She says “Shouldn’t be too deep” so I just jumped in and started wading. It wasn’t bad, except the last bit where the water got up to my crotch. The flow was really strong here, but I polled my way through it and got to the other side. Took a quick picture of some other folks crossing behind me. On hindsight, should have taken a better one.

After that it was more down to the tentsites at Ramona falls. There must be an easy access from a nearby trail head, because all the sites had at leat one person in it with a pile of car camping type gear. Saw kids porting in all kinds of stuff like folding chairs, big bottles of propane, and one kid with a coleman camp stove. Looks like quite a party was getting provisioned.

There was still some light left and I wanted to get the next climb out of the way. So back up from 3k to around 4.5k. Made the camp site by 7, but unfortunately someone(s) beat me to it. There are some huge blowdowns in this area which is in a saddle at the top of the ridge. Most of the other sites were wrecked. Had to put another 30 minutes into brush clearing and got a flat spot to setup. Did a 15 miles on a half day. Pretty happy with that.