Our hike today was Mirror Lake to Tom, Dick, and Harry. These are trails in the Mt. Hood National Forest. They are also a Lake and three Mountains all with an excellent view of Mt. Hood itself. Mirror Lake is a nice 2+ mile ‘popsicle’, with a main trail that splits into a loop around the lake. This is all up the side of one mountain or another, by the way. It was a difficult hike.
The trail was pretty busy at first, with a very full parking lot at the trailhead and lots of people dressed for success. Trail etiquette was iffy but got much much better once we reached the lake and reached the trailhead for Tom, Dick, and Harry.
If you want snow, go north or go up. Georgia wants snow, so we went up. At first there were isolated patches off the trail, but by the time we were approaching Tom’s summit we were hiking through it. The first thing Georgia did when we found some was to flop on her back and wiggle around in ecstacy. She did mega zoomies not once but twice in that dang snow! Passing hikers loved it too. Georgia is a very gratifying dog to hike with; she’s there for it.
At the summit was a boulder field with incredible views in all directions. There were about a dozen folks up there and you could tell we were all really glad to be there. We took each others’ photos, met each others’ dogs, talked about beers after and learned some local culture. Just a really nice time.
On the way down we had to descend the same 1500 feet we had just ascended, but now on a much more crowded trail. We looked for the mirror view of Mt. Hood in Mirror lake but were stymied by clouds. So we finished the hike, and even Georgia was ready to be done. In all, 8+ miles of up and down. We’re going to take it easy tomorrow (and see the Pacific Ocean, too).
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