In my discussions with other Trail Advocates, the south end of Rho Ridge has popped up a few times. I’ve hiked the northern section several times in recent years but I haven’t hiked the southern section other than the segment from the south up to Hawk mountain since 2011 when we did the entire traverse, south to north. I had head that portions of it were pretty rough after the fires – I wanted to experience it for myself. My plan was to start at Graham Pass and see if I could make it down to Hawk Mountain. I knew it would be a bit of a push since it is over 5 miles one way to Hawk Mountain. I didn’t know how bad the trail was going to be but I was determined to make it to the little cabin on Hawk Mountain.

We had a few days of pretty hot weather but it was supposed to cool down quite a bit – Since I knew at least part of the trail would be exposed, I decided to try and leave a bit early to try and beat at least some of the heat. We headed to the trailhead and on the way, I was looking at the temperature display on my truck and it was already 70 degrees and it wasn’t even 9:00 yet! I wasn’t sure it was going to cool down as much as they expected it to.

As we were driving to the trailhead (a long, dusty gravel road drive), there is an open spot where you get a great view of Olallie Butte and Mt Jefferson. When I saw this, I knew it was going to be a great day:

Not too long after that picture was taken, we arrived at the trailhead. It was in the mid 60’s – warmer than I was expecting for that early in the day at this elevation (4400′). I figured we would just figure it out as the day went. If it got too hot we could always turn around.

We suited up and headed out. The beginning of the trail is in good shape:

A bit farther up the trail you can really see the old trail corridor. It always amazes me how wide these trails were back in the day. When they had pack trains going up and down these trails frequently, they needed to be a lot wider than they are now. I just think it is cool you can still see what the trails used to look like:

I had always thought the southern portion of Rho Ridge didn’t have many big trees because there was a lot of logging done – while there was a lot of logging done, there were a lot more big trees than I had expected/remembered:

We soon got to the first (of many) road crossings – the 029 spur:

And soon came to the second road crossing – the 033 spur:

Shortly after the second road crossing we started getting near Fawn Meadow, where the trip would change considerably for the rest of the day:

And then we got to the 270 spur crossing and Fawn meadow – with head high fireweed (I’m not kidding – it was that tall):

I looked back at old photos and I’m pretty sure this is looking at the same spot in 2011 – well before the fires:

We fought our way thru the fireweed, not knowing where the trail was. I figured once on the other side we could start looking for it, but once on the other side, we were presented with this mess – there is a trail somewhere in here:

Thankfully, someone (Dave?) has hung some ribbons – the ribbons helped find the trail many times – this is where it re-entered unburned forest but is pretty brushy in this particular spot:

As we proceeded down the trail, we alternated between unburned and burned areas. Some burned areas weren’t too bad – kind of like the upper areas on Fish Creek Mountain – in this area there was discernible tread, but a fair amount of fireweed to contend with (but not head high fireweed):

A bit farther you could tell it burned pretty hot but the tread was pretty easy to follow and hadn’t been altered much:

A short while later we exited the burn again:

And soon went right back into it:

It continues this pattern several times – not sure exactly how many times – I lost count – I just remember on the way back thinking “this is the last burned area” – and I was wrong over and over:

A bit farther up the trail I found an old insulator just laying on the ground – not sure if someone found it and put it there or what, but it was interesting:

As we fought our way along the trail, struggling to keep on the trail, I got to this area, which left no doubt where the trail went. Gee, I wonder where the trail is?

All along the trail there were LOTS of very ripe huckleberries right on the trail. It was easy picking and I couldn’t help but stop frequently and sample them. They were DELICIOUS!

A bit farther down the trail we crossed what I assume is the 120 spur. The map doesn’t show it going that far, but it is undeniably a road and it is in the correct place. On the north side of the road it was burnt pretty heavily and on the south side it was burned pretty lightly.

It was relatively easy going for a short while until we started climbing a hill and then we got back to chest high fireweed where it was really tough to follow the trail:

We struggled thru the fireweed and it wasn’t too long before we were finally out of the burned areas (at least as far as we were going to go today):

After getting back into unburned forest it was reasonably easy going, but a few areas were a bit brushy. It was still considerably better than most of the burned areas. There were not too many logs down and the ones that were there were easy stepovers.

Shortly before we got to the Hawk Mountain junction, we headed over to check out Round meadow – I’m not sure how it got its name because it isn’t really all that round – and it has kind of a long finger that goes north – but it was kind of interesting to explore:

After exploring the meadow a bit, we headed back to the trail and soon got to the junction with the Hawk Mountain trail. We headed up the trail and it wasn’t too far before we got back into some burned areas – it burned a bit of Hawk Mountain. It was quite different though. I’m guessing there must be a LOT more traffic coming from the south to head up to the cabin, since the trail was actually really easy to follow and in pretty good shape, even though there was some chest high fireweed in places.

It wasn’t too long before we got to the cabin. I opened it up, including all the windows. Someone left a folding chair inside (there is also a bench in front of the windows). We ate lunch inside to keep out of the sun. I had to take my favorite picture – Mt Jefferson centered in the windows looking south:

After eating lunch, I took out my drone and did some videos of the cabin and some wide shots of Hawk Mountain.

Here is a 360 Panorama from the top of Hawk Mountain

Here is the video from the drone:

We walked around up on top – I took this picture of Olallie Butte, Mt Jefferson and Thor enjoying the view from the end of the top of Hawk Mountain:

And a picture of the cabin looking from the south:

Compare that to what it looked like in 2007 (18 years ago!!!) – it needs some help:

And what it looked like in 2015:

By this time is was like 1:30 and we still needed to hike all the way back, so we closed up the cabin, packed up and started back down the trail. Right near the top, I noticed a large wire on the trail – this is too big for phone wire I think – it looks more like the lighting arrestor cable on the cabin, but not sure why it was down the trail – kind of a puzzler:

We got back to the Rho Ridge trail and headed north. As we went, I tried to pay closer attention to insulator in the trees – I ended up finding a half dozen or more – I took several pictures but stopped after a few. At one point, I noticed a piece of phone wire laying next tot he trail as well – this had been repaired at one point (the twisted cable is how they make splices when it broke):

Since it was late, and we had a long ways to go, I didn’t do any work on the way back. We just hiked and fought our way thru all the burned areas. At one point, the trail went right next to this interesting rock formation which I didn’t remember seeing on the way up:

We went in and out of the burn several times and at a few points I thought “I think this is the end of the burn” – but another burn area soon came up. I had forgotten that the burn started at Fawn meadow – the spur road must have acted like a firebreak.

Once we got out of the burn area, it was a lot easier walking. We made pretty good time on the way back. We got back to the truck about 3:30 which should have put us home at a reasonable time. We packed up and headed out. We had one last adventure for the day, however.

I decided to try and drive back 6310 – I’ve driven that up several times to the north end of Rho Ridge and it is faster than driving all the way around 4670. It is a windy road in places but not too bad. I thought it might help me get home quicker. We drove about 12 miles when we got stopped by culvert replacement – you couldn’t drive around it, there was a huge hole in the road. I had seen they had been replacing culverts as we were driving down the road but there were zero signs warning that the road was closed. When we got there, we had no choice but to turn around and drive all the way back up – 24 miles of gravel road driving totally wasted….. Oh well. I did have a bit of cell service at the top so I texted to let everyone know I would be late. I ended up getting home about 6:30. I was tired from a long day of hiking but it was interesting to see this part of the trail that I haven’t seen for a long time. The bonus was seeing the cabin again and all the delicious huckleberries!