This hike was intended to be a quick day hike in preparation for my annual backpacking trip with Carly. I wanted something with elevation gain to do a little conditioning for the trip the following day. Fish Creek Mountain seemed like a good option since it is relatively close and has about 2000′ of elevation gain.

We got started a little late since I wasn’t sure if we would do this or not. I needed to get ready for the big trip (packing, shopping, etc), and wasn’t sure if I would have enough time to do a hike as well. After finishing up a few tasks at home, we headed out and got to the trailhead about 10:45 and quickly started the ascent. I love the beginning of this trail since it is a remnant of the old Cold Springs trail and goes thru some magnificent old growth. The trip up was pretty uneventful – reaching the old decommissioned road on the ridge pretty quickly and heading up to the original trailhead. We then headed up the original trail. Here is the “traditional” view from partway up the trail:

It was a BEAUTIFUL day and not too hot. We continued up the trail to the high lake junction where there is a HUGE blowdown that obscures the trail. I did some cutting and clearing so that at least now you can see where the trail goes:

After cleaning that mess up a bit, we continued down to high lake. I was wondering if we might see some snow down there since it is in a pretty protected bowl. We didn’t see any at the lake, but just before it, we saw this bit of snow remnant on the trail:

We shortly got down to High Lake – here is High Lake with Fish Creek Mountain in the background:

We ate some lunch and I took this short video of Thor playing in High Lake – he just kind of splashed around a bit – enough to get wet up to his chest:

Since he loves water, I wondered if he would go in for a swim, but he just got wet and then came out.

We then headed up to the lookout. On the way up, we met another hiker, which kind of surprised me since there had been no other cars at the trailhead. He had come up after us and headed straight for the lookout. He was going to to High Lake on his way down. We chatted for quite a while – he was from Camas and had been coming down to the Clackamas to get away from the crowds in the gorge.

We made it up to the old Lookout spot – not much has changed here in many years:

After spending a few minutes up there, we headed back down, making really good time. We got back to the truck about 4:30 and headed home.

A good conditioning hike and a great day in the woods. I think I might have made a new hiking friend as well!