Monday, May 27, 2024
Our last hike of Labor Day Weekend was up Little Bald Mountain.
We started at the Coalmine Hill Trailhead. Little Bald Mountain is part of a longer loop hike, but we didn’t do that whole loop.
We started out on an old roadbed:
Then we crossed Smith Ditch on a footbridge. This ditch was a 1930s CCC project that diverted water from Ditch Creek to Willow Creek for irrigation water:
We skirted the edge of Herren Meadow. I didn’t get a photo of them, but we saw several elk out there:
Standing water and flowers:
We hiked through pretty forest:
Then we reached the side trail for Gibson Cave:
At the cave are the broken remains of a long-gone interpretive panel:
This cave got its name when a man named Gibson lived here during the Great depression. He even built a door with a wall and a window. All evidence of that is gone now:
View from the cave mouth:
We headed back to the main trail and continued on. We were too early for most wildflowers, but we saw some:
Unlike Madison Butte the day before this trail had not yet seen any maintenance:
Greg stayed behind taking photos and I kept hiking. I reached an open meadow area below the summit where balsamroot and other flowers were starting to bloom:
Looking up towards the false summit (the true summit is just beyond):
Looking back behind me:
In the distance I could see Mt. Hood:
And Mt. Adams:
Almost to the summit:
Made it!
It’s a wide open area with one lone tree:
The tree has a mailbox on it which contains a bunch of old logbooks, most of which were in very poor condition:
Looking over to Bald Mountain:
Black Mountain in the distance:
We decided to head back down to the false summit and have a break there. The view to the west is actually better from there:
After our break we headed back down:
Nice hike! It will probably be quite pretty in a few weeks when more wildflowers get going. I’d like to do the whole loop sometime.
Gaia stats: 4 miles, 840′ elevation tain
