Monte Cristo/Silver Lake

This weekend I headed out to the old ghost town of Monte Cristo. (And old town in the mountains that was a mining town and was quite the thriving little place in the late 1800's to early 1900's.) There are plans to close down the town to all visitors for several years for some environmental restoration and cleanup, apparently there is arsenic in the water from all the mines. So I wanted to get up there one more time before they closed it.

So after work on Friday I loaded all my gear in the truck and headed out. I got to the trail head at 5:00 in the evening and I hopped on my bike and rode the 4 miles to the old town. The hike in, or ride in my case, is 4 miles of mostly flat gravel/rocks that was once an old road, but is now closed to all motorized vehicles. It is a very popular activity to ride your bike into Monte Cristo as witnessed by the many bike racks placed all around the campsites and town of Monte Cristo. The trail in is relatively easy however you do have to cross the Sauk River on a log which is quite large and wide so its fairly easy.

I got to the campsite at Monte Cristo just at 6:00 and took claim of the last available campsite. After searching for some suitable trees I set up my hammock and got camp all situated. Then I gathered some tender, kindling and fuel and started a fire in the fire pit. I sat and stared at the fire for a bit, then after that went out I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and met my brother and his co-worker at my campsite. (They rode in on bikes that morning.) After they set up their tents and got all situated and we all ate breakfast we set out to hike to Silver Lake.

The old trail to Silver Lake looked to be overgrown and abandoned. The trail sign now points to a different trail which was difficult to locate for us lot. The trail head is hidden behind one of the old buildings but once you walk around the building its easy to locate. The trail climbs steadily and is a mix of dirt, tree roots and rocks. You are amidst the trees almost the whole way apart from one short jaunt where the trees open up and you can see some of the mountains around you. It would have been a spectacular sight, but for us there were low clouds and visibility was severely limited. You climb 1600 feet over the 4 mile hike from Monte Cristo to Silver Lake but the hardest part is the last half mile where you climb almost 500 feet. Its quite steep but luckily its not for very long.

At the top the lake was nice, however by this point visibility was even worse and it started to rain. Clouds were very low and we were getting wet (I was not fully prepared for the rain.) We took a few pictures and filtered some water some the lake. It's best to get your drinking water as high as possible due to the potential of arsenic in the region. Our original plan was to continue on past Silver Lake to Twin Lakes and witness more majestic views. But due to the poor visibility and increasing rain we decided to skip Twin Lakes and head back down. On the way down we stopped at the creek and did some gold panning. There were traces of gold flakes, but we were getting rained on pretty good so we cut that short and headed back to camp.

By the time we got back to camp it stopped raining and started to clear up. We spent some time checking out the old town and looking at the history. Then we made some dinner at camp and then went to sleep. In the morning we woke up and ate breakfast and then packed up camp and biked back to our vehicles. The weather was much better and saw quite a few people heading into Monte Cristo as we were leaving. It was a fun trip but I wish it was a little better weather while we were hiking so we could have gone to Twin Lakes. A lot of cool history, and unfortunately it appears to be closing soon.

Region: Central Cascades, Stevens Pass-West
Distance: Monte Cristo 4 miles/Silver Lake 8 miles
Elevation Gain: Monte Cristo 400 ft/Silver Lake 2000 ft
Peak Elevation: Monte Cristo 2700 ft/Silver Lake 4300 ft
Difficulty: Monte Cristo Easy/Silver Lake Medium
Pass Requirement: Norhtwest Forest Pass
Vegetation: All kinds including ferns, moss, mushrooms, wild berries, sticker bushes, deciduous and conifer trees.
Water Source: You follow Sauk River from the trail head to Monte Cristo. 76 creek flows through the town of Monte Cristo. Silver Lake 8 miles from the road. (All water has the potential of arsenic, get drinking water from as high as possible.)
Wildlife: Lots of birds, frogs, slugs, various insects, chipmunks.

As always check out all the photos of the hike and every hike by clicking on the "Photos" tab.

Greider Lakes

Today is the EXACT reason why I LOVE the Pacific Northwest and precisely the reason I started this blog. It was an absolutely perfect day for hiking. Blue skies and 75º with a light breeze.

This morning I was headed toward Greider Lakes. The trails to Greider Lakes and Boulder Lake now start at Spada Lake. You hike along an old closed road for 2 miles before you get to the old trail heads of Greider Lakes and Boulder Lake. The road from Spada Lake to the old trail head is gravel and mostly flat except for the constant gullies that have been constructed to make it impassible by vehicles. This part of the trail could make for decent trail running and even possibly mountain biking if you don't mind dismounting every so often for the deep gullies and downed trees. (I think I might try biking it next time just to make it a quicker trip.) Don't forget to check out the Spada Lake overlook as you hike along this road en route to either Greider Lakes or Boulder Lake.

Once you reach the old trial head of Greider Lakes you start hiking on a VERY overgrown trail. You notice almost instantly this trail has been neglected for quite some time. After a few hundred yards you get out of the heavy brush and the trail opens up a little bit. The trail conditions go from compact dirt to rocks/small boulders and large tree roots all while navigating over/under/around several downed trees. You climb approximately 1500 feet in about 1.5 miles. After you reach about 2900 feet you continue for another .5 mile or so until you reach Little Greider Lake.

Little Greider Lake was nice and quiet. I was the only one there; there were no other cars in the parking lot when I arrived. I knew I was the only one up there, but I did find two tarps and a tent...very strange. I don't know how someone could manage to leave behind their tent. There were about 4 established campsites at Little Greider Lake.

Then I continued on to Big Greider Lake. Big Greider also has a few established campsites for camping overnight. The trail from Little Greider to Big Greider is a short hike but VERY VERY overgrown. Its doable but just be very cautious of your footing, because its hard to see where you are stepping. But I must say I was very glad I went, it was the most peaceful time I've had in a long time. I enjoyed a nice beautiful hike down passing only 5 parties totally 17 people on my way out. This is truly one of the forgotten trails of the region.

Region: Central Cascades, Stevens Pass-West
Distance: 5.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 1500 feet
Peak Elevation: 2970 feet
Difficulty: Medium
Pass Requirement: None (I think). You do have to register your vehicle at a registration area, and display that on your dash while you're there, but there is no charge.
Vegetation: All kinds including ferns, moss, mushrooms, sticker bushes, skunk cabbage, wildflowers, deciduous and conifer trees.
Water Source: Trail begins and Spada Lake, you hike along Spada Lake for 2 miles on an old road elevated from the lake. You cross a few creeks along this road and leave the road just as the lake connects with Sultan River. Little and Big Greider Lake 4.5 and 5 miles respectively.
Wildlife: Lots of birds, frogs, slugs, various insects. Lots of fish in the lake.

As always check out all the photos of the hike and every hike by clicking on the "Photos" tab.

Peterson Ridge Trail

Well today was a day full of disappointments. I started out in search of a good Lake hike. I headed toward Green Lakes Trailhead. About 6 miles from the trailhead I ran into a "Road Closed" sign. Apparently there had been some wildfires in the area and the roads were closed in that whole area for the next year or so. I didn't feel like hiking an extra 6 miles just to get to the trail head, I was on a time crunch this morning. So I headed back toward Sisters Oregon looking for option number 2. Luckily I did find a cool spiderweb of trails just outside of the small town of Sisters called the Peterson Ridge Trail. So I parked and started hiking, I soon realized this is a perfect spot for some trail running so I synched up the backpack and started jogging. It was a perfect trail for jogging and biking and in fact I came across several people doing just those things. Although there were many different trails interconnected to one another it might have been easy to get lost, but at every intersection there was a sign clearly labeled with where you are and where each path goes with a distance marker on it. The trail was almost all dirt with an occasional rock or tree root in the trail. As I ran I would constantly run from under the sunbeams into shade from the dispersed trees. It was a great clear warm morning and I had a good workout.

I managed to jog several miles and then came across a spectacular view point along the trail of several of the peaks here in Central Oregon. I took pictures of the Three Sisters and one other peak I am unaware of what its called. It was truly a sight to be seen. Then I turned around and headed back...this is where another disappointment came in my day. While transferring my photos I had just taken today to my computer somehow they were all deleted and I wasn't able to save or use any of them. So unfortunately you'll have to just read this post and take my word for it...

UPDATE!!!

Somehow my photos reappeared. I think they got saved to my iPhoto Stream account as soon as they entered into my computer but thats when my computer froze and then the photos were gone once I rebooted. I thought they were lost forever, but they saved to the cloud! Thank you iCloud! Enjoy!