Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Further changes to hike schedule

With the heavy, wet winter snowpack meltoff running a month or more late, rearranging hiking plans is required! A second problem with the Bull of the Woods tour has appeared - a section of road is gone, and a 30 mile detour over twisting gravel Forest Service roads will add two to three hours travel time to any trip there. This is a doubling of travel time. And on top of that, the detour route as of this writing is still blocked by snow! So Bull of the Woods tour slated for July 13th will be put off until next year.


The outing on June 22nd was moved to a lower elevation tour around Clackamas Lake. Even with lowering the top elevation a thousand feet (300 meters) a late season snowfall had just melted off. The original destination, Right Angle Viewpoint, is now rescheduled for July 13th, replacing Bull of the Woods. It's possible snow will still be present at the highest elevations of the hike and on the road leading to the trailhead. Alternative routes are available if the road is blocked by snow.


The next tour, July 20th to the Headwaters High Elevation Loop, will go ahead as scheduled. Again snow is possible, and interesting alternative routes at lower elevations are available at several points along the approach road. Lakes are frequent throughout the Olallie Highlands area.


So the new schedule is:

July 13th - Right Angle Viewpoint area

July 20th - Olallie Highlands High Elevation Loop

See the original descriptions of these tours below in this blog.

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