Saturday, September 14, 2019
While staying at nearby Gold Butte Greg and I decided to do the loop hike up to Battle Ax Mountain. The only other time we’ve done this hike was back in July 2016.
We bumped along the rough potholed road to Elk Lake and parked along the road at the junction with the turn-off for the campground. From there we road-walked 0.4 miles further along the road before hopping onto the Bagby Hot Springs Trail. There is still no permit box here:
Heading up the trail:
This trail hasn’t seen maintenance in awhile and is quite brushy in spots:
These mushrooms loved this spot on the cut end of a log:
Just like yesterday on the hike to Phantom Natural Bridge, we saw millions of ripe huckleberries on this hike:
We got glimpses into the Bull of the Woods Wilderness and the burned area from the 2011 Mother Lode Fire:
Mt. Jefferson on the left, Mt. Washington on the right:
We reached the junction with the Battle Ax Mountain Trail and turned left:
It’s a steep 1.3 miles from the junction to the summit. Because it was steep I was going really slow. Greg would get a little bit ahead, stop and pick a handful of huckleberries, and put them in my hand when I caught up. Hiker fuel! Finally we reached the summit ridgeline:
We reached the summit, which we had all to ourselves. We sat by the old lookout footings:
There are very nice views from the top. Looking north to Mt. Hood:
Elk Lake and Mt. Jefferson:
Mt. Washington and the Three Sisters, and the flat-topped Coffin Mountain:
There are two benchmarks up here:
It’s nice that this hike is a loop. We continued on the Battle Ax Mountain Trail, switchbacking down, down, down to Beachie Saddle. The views on the way down along this stretch are great:
There are several points where the trail is sliding down the hillside:
We reached Beachie Saddle and from here we walked along the old stretch of abandoned road, which quite brushy in spots:
Some sections of this old road are almost getting to the point of being unhikable:
We finished hiking the abandoned stretch and hiked the drivable stretch back to the car. 6.2 miles, 1600′ elevation gain.
