Henline Mountain
The biggest recent news for the Oregon Varneys is that the long-departed hermano returned home from his "lengthy" existence on the east coast.
He returned last Friday, and we immediately took advantage of said arrival by going for a hike. When he is gone, there is no one very handy for me to go hiking with. When he is in Pennsylvania he has only short mountains to climb if he would so desire. The highest point in PA is 1400 feet lower than the short "mountain" we climbed on Saturday.
The hike was in the Opal Creek Wilderness east of Salem, a lovely grueling assault on Henline Mountain. Just before we set out, a young guy drove by and stopped to offer information about the hike -- said it climbed a long way in a short amount of distance. He'd done the hike twice, and said it was definitely worth it. I think perhaps he wondered if we knew what we were in for. On the way up, after 1-1.5 miles, we came upon a lady coming down -- she said it was still a ways to the top, and it was steep...
Somewhat interestingly, I unknowingly fabricated information about the trail and thought there was a false summit at 1.6 miles or something, and that we were to continue on to the real summit at 2.7 miles. Well, there was a false summit but it was at the end of the trail the hiking book talked about. We were blissfully unaware and after seeing the trail branch that led to the false summit's lookout, we turned left down a rarely-traversed and delightfully overgrown path. We reached the real summit, about which time the trail disappeared. Pink tape on the opposite side of the summit suggested that a trail went that way, but the trail was not visible and we did not see any higher summits so we turned around. It was a sort of anticlimactic trail end -- really no view at the trail end (which was a grove of trees and dead wood). It seemed as if the book would have made a comment about where the trail ended, since it was so indistinct. And perhaps it would have, if it had intended for us to go to the real summit.
Take a look at these webpages at summitpost.com for pictures, etc.
Henline Mountain Trail 3352
Henline Mountain Information
It was worth the climb -- views of Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood, delightful valleys, clear skies.
He returned last Friday, and we immediately took advantage of said arrival by going for a hike. When he is gone, there is no one very handy for me to go hiking with. When he is in Pennsylvania he has only short mountains to climb if he would so desire. The highest point in PA is 1400 feet lower than the short "mountain" we climbed on Saturday.
The hike was in the Opal Creek Wilderness east of Salem, a lovely grueling assault on Henline Mountain. Just before we set out, a young guy drove by and stopped to offer information about the hike -- said it climbed a long way in a short amount of distance. He'd done the hike twice, and said it was definitely worth it. I think perhaps he wondered if we knew what we were in for. On the way up, after 1-1.5 miles, we came upon a lady coming down -- she said it was still a ways to the top, and it was steep...
Somewhat interestingly, I unknowingly fabricated information about the trail and thought there was a false summit at 1.6 miles or something, and that we were to continue on to the real summit at 2.7 miles. Well, there was a false summit but it was at the end of the trail the hiking book talked about. We were blissfully unaware and after seeing the trail branch that led to the false summit's lookout, we turned left down a rarely-traversed and delightfully overgrown path. We reached the real summit, about which time the trail disappeared. Pink tape on the opposite side of the summit suggested that a trail went that way, but the trail was not visible and we did not see any higher summits so we turned around. It was a sort of anticlimactic trail end -- really no view at the trail end (which was a grove of trees and dead wood). It seemed as if the book would have made a comment about where the trail ended, since it was so indistinct. And perhaps it would have, if it had intended for us to go to the real summit.
Take a look at these webpages at summitpost.com for pictures, etc.
Henline Mountain Trail 3352
Henline Mountain Information
It was worth the climb -- views of Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood, delightful valleys, clear skies.
posted by Claire at 17:36
5 Comments:
I'll definitely be interested to hear about it -- Matt and I might have to add it to our to-hike list.
Good to hear Matt is safely home... I checked his site and read nothing new... =)...
I'm glad you had a good time!
I'll get after him for the lack of information on his site. :)
Hope all is well your way.
3/27/07
A friend and I hiked yesterday to within 0.3 mile from the top. We turned back because of too much snow on the trail. It was a great hike and we will return within
a month or so.
I'm glad you enjoyed it -- this definitely ranks in my list of favorite hikes.
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