Southern Mount Rainier and the Goat Rocks
4 Goat Lake and Gobblers Knob
5 Indian Henrys Hunting Ground and Pyramid Park
6 Indian Bar and Cowlitz Park
7 Dumbbell and Sand Lakes Loop
8 Cispus Point
9 Packwood Lake and Coyote Ridge Loop
10 Heart Lake
11 Snowgrass Flat Loop
Mount Saint Helens and Vicinity
12 Dome Camp
13 Goat Mountain and Green River Loop
14 Mount Margaret Backcountry Lakes
15 Lewis River Trail
16 Quartz Creek
17 Siouxon Creek
Mount Adams and Indian Heaven
18 Dark Meadow via Jumbo Peak
19 Foggy Flat and Avalanche Valley
20 High Camp and Killen Creek
21 Horseshoe Meadow and Crystal Lake
22 Sunrise Camp
23 Lemei and Blue Lakes Loop
24 Lake Wapiki
Oregon Coast and Coast Range
25 Tillamook Head
26 Cape Falcon to Short Sand Beach
27 Soapstone Lake
28 North Fork Salmonberry River
Columbia River Gorge
29 Silver Star Mountain
30 Soda Peaks Lake
31 Dublin Lake and Tanner Butte
32 Eagle Creek
33 Herman Creek Trail
34 North, Bear, and Warren Lakes
35 Lower Deschutes River Canyon
Mount Hood and Vicinity
36 Cairn Basin and Elk Cove
37 Ramona Falls and Yocum Ridge
38 Burnt Lake
39 Cast Lake and Zigzag Mountain Loop
40 Paradise Park
41 Elk Meadows Loop
42 Salmon River Trail
43 Veda Lake
44 Twin Lakes Loop
45 Boulder Lake
46 Lookout Mountain and Oval Lake
47 Badger Creek
Clackamas River Country
48 Memaloose Lake
49 High Lake
50 Shining Lake 170
51 Shellrock and Serene Lakes Loop
52 Peechuck Lookout
53 Pansy and Twin Lakes
54 Big Slide Lake
55 Olallie Lake Scenic Area Loop
Mount Jefferson and Vicinity
56 Pyramid Lake
57 Firecamp Lakes
58 Jefferson Park
59 Pamelia and Shale Lakes Loop
60 Carl Lake Loop
61 Duffy and Santiam Lakes
62 Three Fingered Jack Loop
63 Washington Ponds and George Lake
64 Cache Creek
Appendix A: More Short Backpacking Options
Appendix B: Recommended Reading
Appendix C: Conservation Organizations and Outdoor Clubs
Appendix D: Land Agencies and Information Sources
About the Author
Summary of Featured Trips
Mount Hood from the ridge above Shining Lake (Trip 50)
Introduction
As a child, I often dreamed of embarking on great backcountry adventures designed to test my outdoor skills in a remote wilderness setting. I would spend hours poring over maps of those increasingly rare but always enticing areas without any roads, planning out huge 100-mile-plus hikes to explore the imagined wonders within those boundaries. Invariably my visions included plenty of wildlife, outstanding scenery, and opportunities for both quiet introspection and grand adventure. In my youthful imagination these trips would last for several days or even weeks, a time span that, I thought, would allow me to fully immerse myself in the solitude and grandeur of the wilderness. In later years, I was lucky enough to take many such long adventures and even to write guidebooks describing some of my favorite long hikes.
I still take my share of long backpacking trips, but now that I am barreling headlong into middle age, nursing two long-suffering knees, and have a life that includes myriad other commitments, I am forced to put limits on my youthful ambitions. And I am not alone. Many of my fellow baby boomers no longer have the time, the energy, or the inclination to take the kinds of long backcountry adventures that they tackled in their youth. Instead, we seek out short mini-vacations (usually on weekends) to places where we can escape the rat race for a night or two, refresh our spirits, and then return to our busy lives with enough fond memories to sustain us until our next wilderness foray—always, so we fervently hope, not too far in the future.
Most of us are parents now, determined to drag our children away from the pervasive influence of video games and inane television fiction into the outdoors where they can experience the beautiful “real” world of nature. We do not, however, want that introduction to be so grueling that it will cause tired young legs to reject backpacking for the rest of their lives. Once again, short one-night hikes are what we seek, the kinds of relatively easy trips that get the kids excited about the outdoors, but don’t cause too many sore muscles or painful blisters.
This book is designed with you in mind. The bookstore shelves are already filled with numerous dayhiking guides. I wrote one or two, and a few of the others are pretty good. But these volumes do not address the unique needs of the backpacker. Hikers looking for overnight adventures are forced to wade through dozens of trips that are unsuitable for backpacking in order to find the few that meet their needs. In addition, these guidebooks rarely provide the kind of information that is most useful to backpackers, such as specifically where to find the best campsites, the location of the nearest water source, or what overnight permits are required. All of these concerns are addressed here.
Since this book includes only the Portland area’s best short backpacking options, it is not a comprehensive guide to all of the region’s hundreds of overnight hiking possibilities. (See Appendix A, for a more thorough listing.) It does, however, present a wide selection of outings, including a range of scenery and difficulty levels, so hikers of all abilities and interests will find plenty of trips to meet their needs.
Tips on Backpacking in the Pacific Northwest
Although this is more of a “where