{"id":4770,"date":"2023-07-17T18:43:05","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T18:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/?p=4770"},"modified":"2023-07-20T20:31:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T20:31:17","slug":"vista-ridge-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/2023\/07\/17\/vista-ridge-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Vista Ridge Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, June 24, 2023<\/p>\n<p>Greg and I headed up to the Vista Ridge Trail to check out the Avalanche Lilies.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>At first we saw signs of recent maintenance:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055165424_1a8efb2bdf_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We reached the junction with the Vista Ridge Trail where we started to see signs of lots of blowdown, and all evidence of recent maintenance stopped:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055460673_703a9d1ca2_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054394252_6ffa6443f1_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Looks like it may be a good beargrass year up here:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054247402_bb31884266_c.jpg\" alt=\"Beargrass\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055313918_966564bf26_c.jpg\" alt=\"Beargrass\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055018764_44c8e1c114_c.jpg\" alt=\"Beargrass\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055357735_6e3a3f690e_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We kept hiking south towards the Timberline Trail climbing over blowdown and pushing through brush:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054982606_5f352beef9_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055164199_336d8df946_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055163819_b8f04d6838_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We saw one heather plant in bloom:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054246657_237de92ba5_c.jpg\" alt=\"Heather\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the years after the 2011 wildfire there were way more lilies to see. This photo is from 2017:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/4234\/35717919901_db2c2a097a_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But now they are getting pretty covered by the brush, mostly huckleberry bushes:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054982346_d03c407ba1_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But we did come across some nice lilies along the trail:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055017744_2bd743b9ac_c.jpg\" alt=\"Avalanche Lilies\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054246472_66fd67533c_c.jpg\" alt=\"Avalanche Lilies\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054834596_e7351a2820_c.jpg\" alt=\"Avalanche Lilies\" width=\"533\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054244532_c1270a3476_c.jpg\" alt=\"Avalanche Lilies\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054391867_6d5a06d169_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054981031_87a13a4695_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054391462_5a52a3bcb4_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054980471_07b8aba1a4_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054390597_fd4aca0696_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After 1.9 miles we hit our first patch of snow at 5,300&#8242;:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055162354_f497d6f02b_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Just after that we reached non-stop snow and decided to make this our turnaround point:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53054391257_0828e06d5c_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>An avalanche lily popping up through the snow:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055162059_cb69c0d9f2_c.jpg\" alt=\"Vista Ridge Trail\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We headed back to the car and finally started seeing a few other hikers. Up to that point we&#8217;d just seen a couple of trail runners starting out from the trailhead as we got ready. All in all we saw less than a dozen people today.<\/p>\n<p>On the drive out of course we had to stop at the roadside viewpoint to gawk at Mt. Hood:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53055460863_8c02cb5e57_c.jpg\" alt=\"Mt. Hood view\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Gaia stats: 3.8 miles, 745&#8242; elevation gain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, June 24, 2023 Greg and I headed up to the Vista Ridge Trail to check out the Avalanche Lilies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[166,168,159],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4770"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4778,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions\/4778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}