Trail of 10 Falls is the 7.5 miles trail loop at Silver Falls State Park. This trail is a true gem in Oregon and it is always very crowded during the weekends, even during winter season. Silver Falls State Park is located East of Salem, and it is about 1.5 hours away from Portland. During this Thanksgiving Weekend with 1 day of sun shine, we decided to pay a visit to this beautiful state park.
We left around 9AM in the morning so that we can get there early to make sure there are parking space available. After reaching Salem and head toward East, we were driving through the valley with beautiful green scenery. It was like living in the dream and the sceneries are like the ones that you would see on post card. We actually stopped by the side of the road for several moments just to enjoy it. A note here, if you want to stop on the side of the road, make sure you find a place that is safe since the shoulder of the road is quite narrow.
We got to Silver Falls State Park around 11AM and there was a surprise there for us. The admission fee is waived on Black Friday! This was just awesome! Although the daily use fee is only $5, it still made us very happy! We parked the car at the South entrance of the park and that is where most people go to. Many people brought their cute dogs, but just note that dogs are only allowed on certain trails.
We started the hike from the South Falls, which is the most popular one. Since there was a lot of rain during the winter, the volume of water coming from the Falls is enormous compared to summer season! The trail goes behind the waterfall where we could feel the water splashing against the cliff. The trail was quite wet here and we had to hop around to make sure we did not step into the water.
Afterwards, we started heading towards North Falls, which is about 5 miles away and there are several waterfalls along the trail. The trail was quite easy with limited amount of elevation gain. The trail goes along the river and sometimes crosses the river as well. At this time of the season, although the trail is slipper, most of the dangerous areas have fences along the side to prevent people from falling.
After about 2 hours of hike, we finally got to North Falls. We would say that the North Falls is more beautiful than South Falls! The North Falls was split into 2 unlike the South Falls which was like a giant white curtain. Similar to South Falls, we could also go behind the North Falls. The area behind the North Falls is much wider and dryer, which allows more rooms for people to take photos.
After the North Falls, it was time to turn back and head back to South Falls. The trail loops back along the Rim Trail, which is very easy to hike on with no difficulty at all. heading back was easy due to trail going in a straight line and only 2 miles.
Overall, the Trail of 10 Falls at Silver Falls State Park is simply amazing. This is by farm one of the best trail I have been on and the difficulty is extremely easy. If 7.5 miles is too long for you, there are 2 other smaller loops with just 2 miles and 5 miles. Thus this is a great place for people to hike around with different preference on difficulties.
Class 302 Cafe is a popular restaurant that offers Taiwanese style food. It has many stores within the Orange County. Class 302 actually means grade 3 and second class. The restaurant is known to have use Taiwanese class room styled tables and chairs in the restaurant. People from Asia country would know what we are talking about when they see it.
We have been to this restaurant 4 years ago. This is the first time that we visit this restaurant again after 4 years and things have changed so much. It does not look like it is as popular as before, probably due to the competition from other new restaurants. The food menu does not have as much variety as before either. In addition, the restaurant is now more like order first and then find a seat kind of style, rather than sit down first and the order your meal. We were shocked about how much have changed in 4 years.
So this time we ordered a Taiwanese Sausage Fried Rice, Pig Blood Rice Cake, Boba Milk Tea, and a Slush Ice. The Taiwanese Sausage Fried Rice came with a huge portion with lot of sausage in it. It was fried perfectly. The only thing that we have minor complain on is that amount of onion in there.
The Pig Blood Rice Cake might sound scary, but it is very common in Taiwan. It is usually dipped with peanut powder to add sweetness to it. We definitely recommend people to give it a try. It is really tasty and not as scary as it sounds and looks.
The Boba Milk Tea is the one that we were shocked with. When we placed the order, we were given an empty cup. Apparently the drinks are self serve. We went to the drink bar, there were different types of bobas and puddings for people to place in their cup and then you choose which drink you want to fill your cup with. It was quite an experience.
The Slush Ice is not as good as before. We felt that this is more like ice cream, rather than crushed ice. We prefer to have crushed ice since that's more like Taiwanese styled dessert.
Overall, we felt that Class 302 Cafe is no longer as good as it used to be. We wished that it could have maintained its quality as before, but the owner must has his/her own reason to change the way how the restaurant operates.
Griffith Observatory is one of the four observatories in California. It is located North of Los Angeles. There is no entrance fee to enter the observatory, but there are parking fees with an hourly rate of $3. Since we were having a vacation at Southern California, we decided to pay a visit to Griffith Observatory.
The observatory was not hard to find. We simply just drove up the road all the way to the top of the mountain. When we got there around 3pm, there was already a lot of car in the parking lot and many car were parked on the side of the road. Note that you still have to pay for parking fee even if you park your vehicle on the side of the road. Luckily, we were able to find a spot in the parking lot right away.
We went into the observatory and looked at the photos of the galaxies and the telescope used to observe the stars. On the outside patio, we could see the entire metropolitan city of Los Angeles. We could still see the smog among the city due to the forest fire that happened a week ago. On the North side of the observatory, we could see the Hollywood sign on the mountain.
There was a stair way on the side for people to access the observatory telescope at the top of the observatory. The telescope is open to public from 7PM to 10PM when the sky is dark. We did not get to try it since it was still in the afternoon and the sun was still bright. But it would have been an awesome experience to check out the telescope.
The observatory also had shows for people to watch, with additional cost. We did not bother to check it out since we just wanted to enjoy the view from the top of the mountain. This is one of the best place to see the sunset over Los Angeles. Furthermore, it is also the best place to see the night scape of Los Angeles.
Overall, we don't think it is a must visit place when visiting Los Angeles, but it is an interesting spot. It would be a romantic spot to spend the evening here to see the night view over the city. We didn't get to stay till the sun goes down, but we would definitely do it next time.
Hollywood is known for its entertainment film publication in the world! It also has this famous HOLLYWOOD sign at the top of the mountain as its landmark. Hollywood is located North of Los Angeles and it is just about 20 minutes of drive, if there is no traffic.
We drove to Hollywood from Irvine and took us about 1.5 hours to get there. The traffic is just crazy in Los Angeles region. When we got there, we wanted to park the car at Highland mall, which only cost $2 parking fee. However, we took the wrong turn and went to a valet parking place, which cost $15.
From Highland mall, we could see the Hollywood sign from afar, and most people take photos of it from here. Originally we thought we could do shopping at Hollywood, but we found out that there weren't many fashion shops there. It was mostly restaurants and pubs. It was very much like a tourist place and there were many scammers on the street. For those scammers, we just try not to talk to them.
The Chinese Theatre is probably the most famous building in Hollywood. Many films were shot here as well, such as Iron Man 3. There were just so many people and we did not bother to enter to take a look.
As we walk on the street, there were stars on the ground and each corresponds to a celebrity. Some stars do not have celebrity's name on it and it is probably for new celebrity to fill their name there. We were trying to see if we could find Donald Trump's star, but we did not find it.
The souvenir shops were interesting and filled with Oscar's golden statues. It was quite interesting. The Oscar golden statue aware sold in the shop shows that it is for "best mom", or "best dad" award. It would be a great gift to bring back to people who are very interested in this kind of stuff.
Overall, it was an experience to visit Hollywood, but not as interesting as we have thought. There were not much stuff for us to do there other than just walking around and look around to see things. However, if you have never been there, it is worth a day trip to check it out.
Top Gun Seafood Restaurant is a Chinese Dim Sum restaurant located in Bellevue Washington. It is a very popular restaurant and there is usually a long line of people waiting at the entrance. We drove from Portland to Top Gun Seafood Restaurant on a Saturday and took us about 3 hours to get there. When we got there, the parking lot was already full. What we meant by full is that although there is still a lot of empty parking spaces in the plaza, most of them have been marked to be reserved for other businesses in the plaza. Thus we had to park our car across the street to avoid the car being tolled.
We walked into the restaurant and took the number to wait in line. We estimated that we had to wait for at least 30 minutes to an hour. Luckily, the restaurant has 2 separate seating areas and the second seating area was still closed. After we waited for about 10 minutes, the restaurant opened the second seating area for everyone who were waiting in line, including us!
After we sat down, we ordered Jasmin Tea. The tea came with a nice looking tea pot, but it could not hold much tea in there. We waited for about 5 minutes before the cart started to come by and we started to order the food. We ordered the usual Pearl Chicken, Shrimp Dumpling, Pastries, and Egg Tart.
The pastry dessert was a bit too sweet. The bottom of the pastry was all covered in brown sugar glaze. The egg tart was a bit too small, and not enough taste to it. Pearl Chicken is the only dish that we actually liked because there wasn't any small shrimp in it. The chicken feet wasn't bad either.
Overall, Top Gun Seafood Restaurant is rated with 4.5 stars on Google, which we think the rating is way too high. We would only give Top Gun Seafood Restaurant a rating of 3 stars due to the taste of food, the service attitude, and the cleanness of the place. In addition, parking was just so difficult. If you plan to go there, make sure you go there early!
Wallowa Lake is located at North Eastern corner of Oregon state and it is known to be little Switzerland in Oregon. It is located right by the town of Joseph and it is about 6 hours of drive time from Portland. Wallowa Lake is also one of the seven wonders in Oregon and its surrounding mountains provide a lot of amazing hiking trails for people who love to hike.
We decided to go for a 4 day vacation at Wallowa Lake during the Labour Day weekend. We left Portland very early at 7AM in the morning and headed East of I84 towards Wallowa Lake. The drive on I84 was smooth along the Columbia Gorge. The scenario was just amazing. Once we arrived at La Grande, we took a rest and had lunch there. We have never been to the Eastern part of Oregon before, thus every thing seem to be very new to us!
We arrived at Wallowa Lake around 2PM in the afternoon and this time we are staying at Wallowa Lake Lodge located at the South side of the lake. Wallowa Lake Lodge is right by the lake and very convenient. The lodge did not offer any air conditioning, but it was not needed. The electric fan was good enough. There was also a lot of deers roaming around the lodge and we have never seen such a big horde of deers before.
On the first day, we just walked around the lake and had a good rest. At night, we went out for star gazing. Wallowa Lake was a perfect place for star gazing due to extremely low light pollution.
On the second day, we woke up extremely early to do a hike at Ice Lake. The hike to Ice Lake was extremely long but well worth it! The lake was beautiful and the trail to the lake was just simply amazing! After we came back from hiking, we had a wonderful dinner at the restaurant at Wallowa Lake Lodge.
On the third day, we went for brunch at Old Town Cafe. The food was amazing there! Afterwards, we went to buy few drinks at Arrowhead Chocolate Coffee & Tea. The chocolate smell amazing there. Later in the afternoon, we decided to head to Hell's Canyon and it was the deepest canyon in US! It was definitely worth a visit!
On the fourth day, we did another hike to Deadman's Falls in the morning along Hurricane Creek. We loved the hiking trail that went through the meadow! In the afternoon, we took Wallowa Tram to the top of Mount Howard. Mount Howard was one of the tallest peak and we were able to see Wallowa Lake from the top!
When we head back home on Friday, we found out that there was wild fire along Columbia Gorge. We could see ashes falling down from the sky onto the car and I84 was closed. We had to drive on Highway 14 on Washington state side instead. It was extremely smoky and visibility was very low.
Nevertheless, Wallowa Lake was an amazing place to visit. We would definitely go there again and explore the area again!
Mount Howard is located in North Easter Oregon and it is the tallest mountain of the Wallowa region. It is known for its breathtaking view from its summit. Due to its popularity, a tram was built to take visitors all the way to the peak at more than 10000ft. There is also a restaurant at the summit of the mountain Called Summit Grill. People in Wallowa often ride the tram to the top to grab a drink while enjoying the view from the summit. In addition, due to Mount Howards height and location, the summit of Mount Howard also provides the perfect place for launching paragliding. Paragliding is a very well known recreational activity here.
The tram station was not far from Wallowa Lake Resort lodge. It only took us about 1 minute to walk to there. When we got there, there was not many people heading to the summit due to the low visibility of the day. The kid who set up the fire in Columbia Gorge is to blame for all these smog. We got to the ticket booth and the round trip ticket is $30 per adult. Seniors and kids under the age of 12 can get cheaper tickets.
The tram seems quite aged but well maintained. The tram was not very big and can only sit 4 people. After we got into the tram, we had to wait for a couple minutes before the tram actually starts moving. While taking the tram, we had the perfect view over Wallowa Lake from the top. It was just amazing. Looking down at the mountain, we could also see trails used by ATVs to deliver goods to the top of the mountain.
After around 7 minutes, we got to the top of the summit. The first thing we did is to grab lunch at Summit Grill restaurant. It was not a very big restaurant and just offered the usually burger, fries, and salad. We did see many locals enjoying their lunch here.
Once we finished our lunch, we went for some hike at the summit. There were few very short trails at the summit. Every trails at the summit lead to a view point towards different directions. However, due to low visibility, we could not see very far. The total of all the trails at the summit sums up to be about 2 miles, but when we were hiking on the trail, it felt less than 2 miles and we finished all the trails rather quickly.
We also went to see the paragliding launch area at the summit. There was no one there when we went. We could feel strong wind blowing towards us.
In general, Mount Howard summit is a must visit place since it is the hallmark of the region. The summit of Mount Howard offers incredible views during clear weather and having a drink at the Summit Grill is just one of the best thing to enjoy.
Deadman's Falls is a waterfall located at Wallowa region, Oregon. It is not a famous waterfalls like many others, but it does have its uniqueness. To get to Deadman's Falls, the hiking trailhead starts at Hurricane Creek Trailhead. This trailhead is about 15 minutes away from the town of Joseph. This trail was actually suggested to us by the ranger when we visited the information center at Joseph. The ranger told us that this was her favorite hike of all time and insisted us to try it!
The Hurricane Creek trail is a very popular trail with many day hikers and backpackers because this trail leads all the way into Wallowa Lake Basin. We got to the trailhead early in the morning around 8AM and there were already a few cars at the parking lot. We noticed that this trailhead requires $5 payment. Luckily, we have NW Forest Pass and did not have to pay for the permit.
Although Hurricane Creek trail is a popular trail, we did not run into any other hikers in the first 2 miles. The trail was very easy to hike on with little to almost no elevation gain. We hiked through beautiful meadows between the mountains and along the creek. We did saw some backpackers heading back and were surprised that they were not wearing any shoes!
We hoped that they did not step on any horse dumps.
Since the trail goes along the running Hurricane Creek, we could often hear the water rumbling through the rocky canyon. The view of the creek running through the rocks were magnificent. After about 3 miles into the trail, we finally reached the waterfall. Unlike many other waterfalls, Deadman's Falls did not have a lot of volume of water. We almost missed it.
In addition, while we sat down there and enjoy the view, a woman came by and started climbing on the rocky surface beside the waterfalls. She just kept climbing higher and higher and eventually got over to the top of the cliff. We were amazed with what she did, but not sure what she was looking for.
When we headed back to the car, we started to see more people hiking the trail. There were backpackers, and day hikers with their dogs and babies. This was an amazing trail with beautiful views. We wished that we could have more time and hike the entire 12 miles to Wallowa Lake Basin, which has stunning views as well.
Arrowhead Chocolates Coffee & Tea is a cafe located in the town of Joseph in Wallowa County, Oregon. It specializes in chocolate related drinks and also makes chocolates as well. It is quite a popular cafe in Joseph and it was always crowded in the store.
While visiting the Wallowa region to enjoy the vacation, this was a cafe that we could not miss. Before even entering the store, we could already smell chocolate from outside! Once we entered the store, the store employees greeted us with a huge selection of chocolate and drink menus, we were having trouble trying to figure out what we want.
So we ended up getting the special drink, called Napoli. It seemed to be a mixed drink with juice and tea. Another drink that we got is a blended chocolate drink. The Napoli drink itself has a beautiful and mythical color. The bottom of the drink had orange color, and the top of the drink is blue. In the middle, we could see the transition of the color from orange to blue, which is amazing. After we stir the straw to mix it, the drink becomes purple color. The drink itself taste like fruit tea with sweetness, however, it was not very sweet. We liked it a lot because of the taste of fruit. It was like one of those tea that you would get from Teavana.
The blended chocolate drink was not as special as Napoli of course. It did have a very strong chocolate taste. Unlike chocolate drinks at other stores, this blended chocolate drink at ArrowHead Chocolates is not as sweet as we thought. We could actually taste some bitterness of the chocolate from it, which is quite interesting.
At Arrowhead Chocolates, there were also several hot drink menu items. If we order a hot chocolate, either white or dark chocolate, they would give a spoonful of chocolate for tasting. We were lucky that the employee gave us samples to try and the chocolate was amazing. Since we had already ordered our drink, we did not get another order of hot chocolate.
Nevertheless, this is definitely a must visit place when visiting Wallowa region!
Old Town Cafe is a very nice little brunch place in the town of Joseph in Wallowa County, Oregon. The restaurant is open since 7am in the morning and closes at 2pm. It offers all day breakfast to customers and customers can also choose to do take out instead of dine in. The restaurant offers both indoor and outdoor seating area. in fact, there are more outdoor seats than indoor seats.
We visited this place around 8:30am in the morning and there were already so many people at the restaurant. We walked in into the restaurant and the waitress told us we could just find a seat ourselves when there is a table available. So we did and sat down, and the waitress brought us the menu. The menu offers similar brunch selections that other brunch restaurants offer. One good things is that we could choose to have the full serving or half serving. This time, we decided to order a full serving of scramble egg with link sausages, half serving of cranberry crepe and French toast.
Scramble egg with link sausages is also served with house made potato. The potato is cooked perfectly with crispiness and sweet. The sausage is quite chewy as well. The French Toast is very crispy. In our past experience, we always thought that French toasts are softer with sweetness. The restaurant provided maple syrup to be used on French toast to sweeten it. The cranberry crepe is our favorite dish here. Inside the crepe, there is custard creme which blend very well with sour cranberry sauce.
The only down side here is that the outdoor seating area had quite a lot of flies flying around and were quite annoying. It would have been better if there were not that many flies around.
Overall, the service at the restaurant is quite good and we were served as fast as they could. They did inform us that the serving of food could take longer than usual due to the number of take out that they need to serve first. We strongly recommend this place if you visit Wallowa region. This is one of the better brunch places that we have been to.
Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in America. The canyon is located at North Easter Oregon bordering with Washington and Idaho state. It is about 16km wide and has the deepest river gorge of 2436 meters. At the deep end of Hells Canyon, Snake river flows through it and carves through the canyon. Snake river also acts as the border between Oregon and Idaho.
Although Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in America, it is not as popular as Grand Canyon due to its remote location. We visited Hells Canyon when we were having vacation at Wallowa Lake. To go from Wallowa Lake to Hells Canyon, it is about 1.5 hour of drive to Hells Canyon Overlook. Original we were worried about the road being in bad condition or unpaved, but we were wrong. The road was in perfectly good condition and was only paved back in 2015. So driving to Hells Canyon Overlook was quite easy through the winding mountain road.
While on the way to Hells Canyon Overlook, we came across many free range farms. We were actually stopped by 2 cows standing in the middle of the road! The cows were starring at us in the car and slowly moved to the side of road. We were wondering where the cows come from because we were very high up in the mountain.
After about 1.5 hours, we reached Hells Canyon Overlook. It was a smoggy day due to Oregon forest fire, but we could still see the canyon wall at the far end. We felt so small while overlooking Hells Canyon!
Afterwards, we decided to drive all the way down to Snake River to see what it is like at the end of the Canyon. We drove on the road for another hour toward East to reach the bottom of the mountain by Snake River. It felt very deserted and not many cars are around. We did not see any gas stations either, thus it is important to keep the gas tank full!
We drove along Snake River and also went through a single lane tunnel to reach Hells Canyon Park. There were few trailers there with people camping there.
Overall, Hells Canyon was an interesting place to see, but do not expect too much activities here. There are some boat tours but we did not bother to take a tour. It was a good experience but we would not recommend to put this on the must do list when visiting Wallowa region.
Wallowa Lake Lodge Restaurant is one of the only high class restaurant that offers upper class fancy food around Wallowa Lake region. The restaurant itself is located in Wallowa Lake Lodge, which is located at the South side of Wallowa Lake. The restaurant itself offers patio seating area and indoor seating area, and can accommodate up to around 100 people. There is also a piano inside the restaurant where sometimes they will have pianist playing classical music during the dinner time.
We went to Wallowa Lake Lodge Restaurant for dinner after a super long day hike. It was also convenient for us since we stayed Wallowa Lake Lodge for vacation, so we just had to walk down there to get to the restaurant. When we got there, the patio seating were all taken since it was a beautiful summer day and there were hordes of deers roaming around the garden outside. The window seats facing the garden were all reserved as well. It did not matter to us however, because we were just very hungry with tired legs and just wanted to sit down and have food. The waitress led us to the window seat on the other side facing the parking lot, which is really good too!
The menu did not offer a lot of choice but it was good enough. We wanted to order the prime rib steak, but the menu indicated that it was only offered on Saturday. When the waitress came by, she told us the restaurant had a special today that offers prime rib with cheese on top. That sounds amazing! Thus we ordered a cranberry salad, a prime rib dinner special, and a shrimp cocktail as appetizer. A short moment later, the waitress brought us a basket of warm bread. It was quite interesting because all 4 bread in the basket are different. They were all wheat, white, and 2 others that we did not know what to call it.
The shrimp cocktail arrived first. There were 4 large fresh shrimps place at the top of the wine class and dipped with salsa sauce! The shrimp was fresh and tender! We were really surprised to have this kind of food at such a remote location! Moments later, our dinner were served! The prime rib smelled so good with the cheese on top! The prime rib steak was cooked perfect that simply just melts in the mouth. The taste of cheese helps to add some salty taste and texture to each bite of the prime rib! The prime rib was also served with steamed broccoli and baked potato, which is just ordinary. The cranberry salad was served with cranberry and cranberry sauce. The sauce was a little more sour than we liked. The salad also had a lot of almond added on top of it which added crunchy texture to the salad.
Overall, Wallowa Lake Lodge Restaurant was an amazing restaurant to dine at at such a remote location of Wallowa region! We suggest to give it a try when you visit Wallowa Lake!
Ice Lake is located in the Wallowa Mountains at North East corner of Oregon. The hiking trail to Ice Lake is one of the most popular hiking trail in the area. From the trail head at Wallowa Lake to Ice Lake, the one way trail length is about 9 miles long. Although it is a long trail, the elevation gain on this trail is moderate and quite easy to hike on. Since the trail length is 9 miles, people often to backpacking and camp at Ice Lake for a night before heading back. Some people used Ice Lake as the base camp so that they can hike the mountain peaks in the area such as Matterhorn.
We chose to do a day hike to Ice Lake this time. We started on the trail quite early around 7:30AM and the parking lot was nearly full at that time. This is probably due to the long weekend and many people were doing backpacking. The first 2.5 miles were very easy and smooth with nearly no elevation gain. Took us about an hour for the first 2.5 miles. Then we came to a wooden bridge with the rail only on one side of it. Just before the bridge, there was a trail forking off to Wallowa West Fork trail. That trail leads to Wallowa Lake Basin area, so make sure you know which trail to take.
After the bridge, we entered into the meadow. The trail goes through the meadow that was in the canyon of the mountains. With the morning sun shining on the mountain side, the view was just gorgeous. After the meadow, we started the first round of switchbacks and start to gain some elevation. The climb was quite easy and was not difficult at all.
After the first round of switchbacks, we were hiking in the meadow again. We could see the river flowing through the mountain ridge on the far side and we knew that was where we were heading to. The river was flowing from Ice Lake. We reached the bottom of the ridge and started the second round of switchbacks. The elevation gain here is similar to the first round of switchbacks and easy to hike.
After hiking to the top of the ridge, the trail became essentially flat and led toward Ice Lake. We could still see many wild flowers blossom on the side of the trail. After half more miles, we finally reached Ice Lake. We could see many people swimming in the ice cold water since the day was so hot! There were also dogs running around and enjoying the water.
We sat down to take a break and enjoy our lunch here. We were having some cookies and suddenly and Labrador Retriever ran to us and just sat beside us. We knew she want the cookies but she wasn't looking at us. She was just starring forward. It was not until her master called her and went away.
So it took us about 4 hours to get to Ice Lake and coming back down took about 3 hours. If we had more time, we would have gone up to Matterhorn which provides stunning view over the entire Wallowa basin. Matterhorn was only about 2 more miles but has quite a lot of elevation gain. So we will do it next time.
Overall, this is a must do trail when visiting Wallowa! Just make sure you bring enough water and leave early if you are doing a day hike!
Elk Mountain is one of the more difficult hiking trail in Oregon. Elk Mountain trail is located in Tillamook State Forest Park. It is about an hour East from Portland. The trail itself is only 1.6 miles long but has over 2000ft of elevation gain. Thus this trail is rated as a difficult trail. The trail is located conveniently just beside Elk Creek campground and many campers make this climb while enjoying their stay.
We left home around 7AM in the morning and headed East towards Elk Mountain trail head. We took Highway 26 and turn onto Highway 6. When we go to the trail head at 8AM, many of the campers just woke up and not many people were doing the hike due to its difficulty. We parked the car and got prepared to do the climb.
We got to the trail head and the sign clearly states that it is a difficult trail. The trail started to climb steeply and kept going upwards. It was just minutes later we were already starting to get exhausted. The trail was also quite narrow with overgrown shrubs on the trail due to not having much traffic along the difficult trail. Sometimes the trail would elevate steeply and required us to climb over rocks and trees. For the entire trail, we only saw 2 other hikers. Thus we can easily conclude that this is not a popular trail due to its rated difficulty.
Although the trail isn't popular, the view at the summit was still gorgeous! We got to the top by around 9:30AM and the view was stunning. We could see King Mountain and the entire Tillamook Forest. At the summit of Elk Mountain, there was a box where we could open. There was a note book in there with a pen where we put down our name to show that we have completed this hike. make sure you sign this notebook when you complete this difficulty hike!
Elk Mountain trail also loops around to King Mountain, however we did not do this loop this time due to errands we had in the afternoon. Thus we went back down the same way we came up. Going down the mountain is not as easy as we thought. The trail was quite slippery due to the small rocks. We slipped few times and had to go slow.
Overall, Elk Mountain is not a trail for beginner hikers. It is a short trail with excessive elevation gain and people doing this hike should wear proper hiking shoes to prevent slipping on the trail.
Tom Dick and Harry Mountain is located about an hour away from Portland. It is very close to Government Camp in Mount Hood National Forest. The trail to Tom Dick and Harry Mountain summit starts right off Highway 26. The trail head is the same trail head as the Mirror Lake trail. In face, half of the trail to Tom Dick and Harry Mountain summit is the same trail that goes to Mirror Lake. Once you reached Mirror Lake, Tom Dick and Harry Mountain trail branches off and goes on for another 1.6 miles. It is not a difficult trail and the elevation gain is not substantial. It is definitely a good day hike to reach the top of the mountain.
Similarly, when doing this trail, it is the best to get there early before 8 so that you can secure a parking space. Otherwise you will have to park your car at Skibowl and walk 1 mile back down to trail head. Once we reached Mirror Lake, we went onto Tom Dick and Harry Mountain trail. We did not see anyone when we walked on this trail. We were thinking that most people probably just enjoyed their time by the lake. Some parts of the trail here are actually quite narrow and we had to be a bit careful when walking on the rocky trail.
After about a mile of climb, the trail makes left turn onto the ridge of the mountain. This part is super easy and the trail is almost flat to walk on. There were a lot of flies and bees buzzing around, which was extremely annoying. About 20 minutes later, we got to the final part of the trail where we had to climb over the rocky hill to reach the top. Once we got to the top, we saw quite a lot of people are already here enjoying the view.
The view from the top was simply amazing. We could see Mount Hood, of course. We could also see Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, and Mount Jefferson. The view was just unbelievable. We could also see Mirror Lake down below.
Overall, this is an amazing trail. Not only that it provides amazing view, it is also a fairly easy trail to reach the top of the summit. We highly recommend people to do this trail!
Mirror Lake is located in Mount Hood forest and it is about an hour East of Portland. The trail head of Mirror Lake is directly off Highway 26 and thus brought a lot of traffic to this terrific hiking trail. The trail itself is about 1.6 miles long that goes to Mirror Lake and makes a loop around the lake. There are also camp sites for backpackers around the lake on first come first server basis.
We left our home around 7:30AM and got to Mirror Lake trail head around 9AM. When we got there, the parking lot at Mirror Lake was completely filled. It was also a small parking lot, so if you want to get a parking spot there, you will have to come before 8AM. Since we cannot find a parking spot, we drove a mile further and parked the car at Ski Bowl. Ski Bowl requires you to purchase a parking permit during the winter, but parking is free during the summer. Also, there is restroom if you need to use it. After we parked our car, we walked back down on the side of Highway 26 to the trail head. The side of Highway 26 is easy enough for people to walk on, just be careful for some pot holes.
The Mirror Lake hiking trail starts with a narrow wooden bridge for people to walk across the creek. Then we entered the forest and it was pretty dark in the forest even though it was a sunny bright day. The trail elevates a little bit, but not much elevation gain here. Along the hiking trail, we also saw many chipmunks following us around. Note that do not feed the chipmunks even though they look really cute when they are begging for food!. After around 5 switchbacks, we reached the lake!
The lake surface was very calm and reflected the mountain and the trees. From the South side of the lake, we could see Mount Hood and its reflection on the lake! There were some part of the trail where we walked through the marsh but it is not too big of a deal. Many people brought chairs and picnic sets to enjoy the day there. There were also people who brought canoes with them.
Overall, Mirror Lake is a great place to spend the summer weekend at and enjoy the nature. It is definitely a great spot to just sit there for the entire afternoon and enjoy the sun shine.
