Today’s trip was intended to be a different destination, but since Oliver was not able to come, we decided to do another loop that I’ve been looking at. It turned out to be an awesome trip!
We got a bit … Read the rest
Tag Archives: Kirk
Trips with Kirk
9/7/2026 – Plaza Trail to Salmon Mountain – 783,787
Today’s trip – wow – where to begin. Since everything past Fish Creek is still closed due to the fires, options were limited, but we originally planned the trip to go up the Plaza Trail and then out the Salmon … Read the rest
6/8/2026 – Random Eastside Explorations
Today’s trip was a totally different trip than what I usually do. The original plan was to hike the White Iris trail to see if the iris were in full bloom yet, but the weather forecast kept getting worse and … Read the rest
5/8/2026 – Triangulation Peak
Today’s hike was a memorable one. It was (for me) a last minute hike decision, but I’m really glad things worked out so I could go. It merits the “epic” tag for a hike for sure.
Since we knew it … Read the rest
5/2/2026 – Tarzan Springs to Mt Lowe – 595, 564
Today’s trip had a couple of purposes:
… Read the rest - Replace my trail cam at the second rockslide – the battery was at 7%
- Try and make it up to Mt Lowe
The second objective was a little ambitious, but I’ve done this
1/24/2026 – Cottonwood Meadows Snowshoe – 705
The plan for today’s trip was to head to the lower Cottonwood Meadows trailhead and walk up as far as we could until we hit enough snow and then put on our snowshoes and go as far up as we
… Read the rest 1/12/2026 – Fanton to Squaw Mountain Snowshoe – 502, 505
After our VERY wet New Years Day hike, my appetite for wet hikes was pretty low. The last week plus has been wet and snowy so I haven’t gotten out (missing my two hikes a week goal!). Today (a Monday)
… Read the rest 1/1/2026 – Pechuck Lookout
Today’s hike has become an annual tradition. It started in 2011 (I think) to do a “start the new year right” hike. Looking back over the last 15 years, I’ve done one every year except two (2012 and 2017 –
… Read the rest 10/20/2025 – Baty Butte to Powerlines – 545
I had heard that there had been recent maintenance on the Baty Butte trail, so today’s hike was to check out and enjoy the work. This is one of my favorite trails – it is very unique with some good
… Read the rest 9/12/2025 – Corral Springs – 507
Today’s hike was kind of a short day – Kirk had the day off but needed to be back early to babysit the grandkids. We decided to do a trail I haven’t done in a few years – the Corral
… Read the rest 9/1/2025 – Bagby Trail South
Today’s hike I had been looking forward to all week. Kirk and I had planned to go hiking – he asked where and I offered several options, including a couple of “wild” options. One of them was to hike up
… Read the rest 5/27/2025 – Old Dickey Lake Trail
Today’s hike had one objective – see if we could find the remainder of the old Dickey Lake trail. We had found part of it a couple of years ago when we did a wintertime trip to Bagby. We had
… Read the rest 1/19/2025 – Cripple Creek – 703
Today’s hike was a bit shorter than usual (although we still did 5 miles – and the first couple were REALLY, REALLY hard!) – we decided to hike on Sunday afternoon – Kirk had a memorial to attend and I
… Read the rest 11/16/2024 – Shellrock Cache Meadow Serene Lake Loop
Since I’m going to be having cataract surgery this week (which means I will be down for a week or two) and because I didn’t get out last weekend, I wanted to make sure I got out this weekend. My
… Read the rest 8/24/2024 – Cottonwood Meadows – 705
Today’s hike turned out considerably differently than expected. The plan was to hike the Cottonwood Meadows trail from the southern trailhead – go up the trail to the northern trailhead and turn around and come back down. We encountered a
… Read the rest 6/22/2024 – Fish Creek Mountain – Side Door
After hearing that there was a way to get up to the Fish Creek Mountain trail relatively easily, I’ve wanted to explore this trail after the fire. Today was the day. We headed out a bit early since I needed
… Read the rest 5/18/2024 – Huxley Lake 521
Today’s hike was going to be a relatively short one since Kirk had to get back early for an event. I’d been looking for trails that were opening up since the snow levels have been rising. I hadn’t hiked the
… Read the rest 5/11/2024 – Bissell/Old Baldy 502
The weather today was supposed to be sunny and unseasonably hot. I wanted to get up into snow somewhere, and decided to either do the White Iris trail or the Bissell trail, depending on which we could get to. It
… Read the rest 4/27/2024 – Rho Creek – 569
The plan for today’s hike was to see how far we could get up the Rho Creek trail. The modeled snow depth maps showed no snow at the trailhead and then about halfway up the trail, the snow quickly getting
… Read the rest 4/13/2024 – Fanton Trail
Today’s hike was intended to be a snowshoe trip. The plan was to take the Fanton trail (a favorite snowshoe destination of mine) as far as we could. Kirk had to get back for a family event, so it was
… Read the rest 12/9/2023 – Burnt Granite – SNOW! – 595
We’ve had some cold weather and a bunch of rain, so higher elevations have gotten more snow. Looking at the modeled snow maps, I was hoping we might be able to get up to a last of the season higher
… Read the rest 9/4/2023 – Schreiner Peak
Today’s hike is one I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Kirk suggested we do it on Labor Day. I will be doing my annual backpack trip with Carly next weekend and needed to do some conditioning anyway, so
… Read the rest 3/4/2023 – Half Creek Waterfall Explorations
Today’s hike was spurred by some info I got from a friend last week at a meeting of the Trail Advocates. A new waterfall had been found after the fires opened things up. It was a pretty tall waterfall and
… Read the rest 2/11/2023 – Bagby Trail Explorations
Today’s hike was different than many I’ve done recently. The weather on Saturday was forecast to be really nice, which turned out to be very accurate. I wanted to get out, and after some discussion with Kirk, we decided to
… Read the rest 1/28/2023 – Fanton Snowshoe
Today’s hike was a relatively simple plan – one which I’ve done before. The idea is to drive up the 4614 road as far as you can to catch the Fanton trail, and then hike it up as far as
… Read the rest 1/1/2023 – Fish Creek – Post Fire
Today’s hike was my annual New Years Day hike – I’ve done it 10 of the last 12 years. Since you can now legally enter burned areas on foot, we decided to head up the old Fish Creek road (road
… Read the rest 11/19/2022 – Dry Ridge Trail
Today’s hike was to explore some more of the burned areas. We also wanted to hike a trail we hadn’t been on recently and also due to recent snow, had to be accessible. The Dry Ridge trail seemed to fit
… Read the rest 10/10/2022 – Whetstone Mountain – 546
Trying to take advantage of the really nice fall weather, and the fact that I had Columbus day off, I decided to head out on a hike. I didn’t want anything too taxing, but I wanted a nice day in
… Read the rest 9/24/2022 – Bull of the Woods
Today’s hike had two objectives:
… Read the rest - To hike to the Bull of the Woods and look at the remains of the lookout that was destroyed in the fires last year (and also see the burned areas)
- To explore north of the
9/6-9/9/2022 – Alpine Lakes Wilderness Backpack Loop
This trip was my annual backpacking trip with Carly (Number 18). Originally, we were planning to climb Luna Peak a little farther north. A few days before we were to leave, a fire broke out near where we would be
… Read the rest 8/13/2022 – Baty Butte to Powerlines
Today’s trip was kind of a surprise (the destination was) – for the last 2 years, the majority of the Clackamas has been closed due to fires. Even though a huge portion of the district didn’t burn, the roads getting
… Read the rest 5/21/2022 – White Iris Trail area Explorations
I haven’t been hiking in over a month – mostly due to really wet weather and the fact I wasn’t in the right head space to deal with getting soaked – so I’ve been waiting for a nice day to
… Read the rest 4/9/2022 – Huxley Lake
Today’s hike was my first hike in almost 2 months – I’ve been resting my knee after the arthroscopic surgery and was finally able to get out and do some real hiking again. Zack was originally going to go but
… Read the rest 3/27/2022 – Clackamas Flyover
Today’s outing was not technically hiking, but it was exploration for the burned areas in the Clackamas. Since we STILL cannot access any of the burned areas, this was the next best thing. A friend of mine knew a pilot,
… Read the rest 1/1/2022 – Highland Butte
Today’s hike was the annual “first hike of the year” event. I’ve done a hike on 1/1 on 9 of the last 11 years – and one year I missed it due to weather. We’ve had some low elevation snow,
… Read the rest