I had originally planned to make another trip out to the Willamette National Forest for some more hikes this day, but upon the advice of some of the people at the dinner party, I opted, instead, for a closer hike – Mount Pisgah. It’s a nearby mountain that offers splendid views of the surrounding area. They told me it was about 3 to 4 miles round trip. What they didn’t tell me was that it was constant elevation gain up and constant elevation loss down.
Anyway, we dropped Debi and her advisor off at work, then headed to Mount Pisgah (only about 20 minutes this time, not enough for a real nap for Toren), geared up, and headed up the mountain. I kept hoping that the trail would level off at some point and give me a chance to recover before heading back up the mountain. Yeah, no such luck. It’s an elevation gain of about 1,200 feet in about 1.8 miles.
The view from the top is definitely worth it, but the hike itself isn’t particularly beautiful. There are two trail options, one of which is a little less steep but about 3/10s of a mile longer (I took the longer route up, the shorter route down; I should have done it the other way – easier on the knees). On the way up on the longer trail, which is narrower, I ran into two snakes laying right across the path. They were about 3 feet long and appeared to be sunning themselves. I hate snakes, but am really wary of them with Toren on my back. I kicked rocks at them until they slithered off, which they did quite readily after being pelted with gravel. I didn’t want to kill them, but I also didn’t want to get into problems with a child on my back.
We made decent time and summited fairly quickly. I let Toren play around a bit at the top before we headed back down (I’ve been doing this on the hikes, since the hiking is for me, I figure he deserves to play when we’re done hiking). Here are a few pictures from the top:
Here’s the GPS track from the hike:
I was beat after this early morning hike, so I picked up some lunch on the way back to the hotel, then basically lounged around while Toren played until he took a nap. He and Debi then went to the pool after she finished up work. My rib (which I broke a few weeks ago) started acting up this day as well, so we basically just took it easy the rest of the night.
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