Portland Hiking News for November 16-17

I like to keep folks up to date on the various news and conditions related to Portland hikes, and this weekend it’s all about the weather.

portland hikes table rock
Look for more of this starting this weekend.

The Cascades Forecast is all about snow, and this advisory talks about 6 to 12 inches around 3,000-4,000 feet, and maybe 16 inches above that. The latest snow levels thread at PortlandHikers.org showed snow in the Gorge around 3,000 feet as of a few days ago. Seems like hikes below, say, 2,000 feet will stay that way this weekend.

Meanwhile, the fall colors thread is hanging on, with some color reported on Hamilton Mountain last weekend.

Anyway, here’s my list of best hikes in the rain.

The Cape Horn Loop is one of the best gorge hikes and fall colors hikes near Portland.
You can certainly go see Cape Horn this weekend.

One place you might go is Cape Horn, and I found out they’re still tweaking that trail. The newest re-route is below the tunnel and will avoid what I like to call the Stones of Tedium, that pain-in-the-foot section of scree just below the highway.

This map, from Ryan Ojerio of Washington Trails Association, shows it well:

The Cape Horn Western Re-Route
The Cape Horn Western Re-Route, shown here in yellow.

It’s too bad the Forest Service doesn’t do better at communications. I hear they have put up a new sign on the Wahkeena Trail that re-creates one of their worst mistakes:

From airoff on PortlandHikers.org.
From airoff on PortlandHikers.org.

The problem, as detailed in the post where I found this, is that those are the mileages to the trails, not the destinations! Anybody who has no map and no idea what they’re doing could start towards Larch Mountain, thinking it’s two miles away, and … I don’t know, wander off into the snow or something. Good gosh! They have to do a better job of this.

Anyway, happy hiking this weekend. And be careful! Post a comment below to tell me where you’re off to, and maybe later how it went.

Follow me on Twitter (@60HikesPortland) or Google+, or like the “60 Hikes” page on Facebook.

I don’t just hike around Portland, though: I also lead trips to Europe, and I’m the Portland Breakfast Guy. Check out BreakfastinBridgetown.com.