Triangulate This!

Another gorgeous spring day in P-town. While everyone packed their children and dogs into their Subarus and headed into the gorge to hike the easy-and-scenic hikes, Bryan and I took a different approach and headed south.We picked an unknown-to-us hike from our hiking guide near Mt. Jefferson. Titled "Triangulation Peak", it promised sweeping views of Mt. Jefferson and the surrounding wilderness. 5.6 miles round-trip, plus a we got to bag a summit– it was perfect. We could drive there, do a quick scamper up the peak and then make it back to Portland in time for a recital at the opera. All-in-all, a nice little Sunday.

The directions in the book to the trailhead read like this:
"From Detroit, drive six miles southeast on OR 22 and turn left onto FS 2233. Drive 7.8 miles (the road turns to gravel after four miles) to a road junction. Stay to the right and drive another 1.3 miles to the junction with FS 635. Turn right on FS 635 and park in the trailhead parking area."

Sounds fairly straight-forward, so we hit the trip meter on the odometer and headed off of OR 22 onto 2233 with confidence. About a mile after the gravel started, so the did the snow. A couple of clumps here and a couple of clumps there. Then, the whole road is snowed in, about 4 feet deep and the only tracks we see are snowmobile tracks. We drive a little farther and finally Bryan thinks that we might want to consider stopping, parking the Jeep and just hiking the rest of the way in. So, we pull off to the side of the road, strap on the packs and start walking.

And walk we did. After about an hour and half, when we just started discussing a turn-around time, we finally came upon the trailhead sign. Almost completely buried in snow. We had no clue which way to go. We could see where we needed to be, but no idea how to get there. By this time, we had already added 3.1 very-uphill miles to our hike so, we took a rest, had some snacks, turned around and headed back. We got back to the Jeep, kicked in the four-wheel drive, and tore our way out of there. (The sun had softened up the snow a bit which made for an interesting two or three miles.)

On all counts, it was a pretty unsuccessful day. No bagged peak, one almost badly stuck Jeep, no triangulation of any sort.

But, you know, it was a great hike. Sure, we drove two hours each way to get there, and yeah, we basically hiked up a logging road in four foot deep snow only to turn around at the trailhead. I'm probably sunburned and, we didn't make it back in time for that recital. But, we spent the day out in the sun and the crisp Oregon mountain air, laughing with each other, and hearing nothing else but the sound of the snow crunching beneath our shoes.