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| Hiking | 5.60 Miles |
1,574 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.60 Miles | 4 Hrs 51 Mns | | 1.15 mph |
| 1,574 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | This hike to my favorite part of the Three Sister Wilderness takes you to some amazing views of Broken Top Mountain and the Three Sisters. It's a fairly short hike if FR370 and FR380 are open from Todd Lake to the Broken Top Trailhead. The gate on FR370 at the end of the Todd Lake parking lot is closed during winter until the snow clears from the road and its had a chance to dry out in late spring. When it's open a vehicle with moderately high clearance and preferably 4-wheel drive is required. I did see all-wheel drive Suburus in the TH Parking Lot. As I was driving out I encountered a Suburu Outback coming up a narrow rough and moderately steep section of the road. I pulled over to let it pass but the driver had slowed down and then backed up for some distance down the road waiting for me. I drove on stopping to ask the driver why she had stopped since I was waiting at a wide spot at the top of the hill. She responded "I lost momentum!" She had to back up to take another run at the hill. Her car had a stick transmission. So obviously having a 4-wheel drive vehicle with a low range transmission is beneficial but not necessary if you don't lose your momentum. 
When I arrived at the TH at 8:30am on a Saturday the small parking lot was already full except for one last spot which I grabbed. Then some people left having already finished their hike opening up a couple of spots. I think some people come here for their early morning exercise. Several years ago I was camped off trail at the edge of a meadow about 2 miles from this TH when my early morning coffee solitude was interrupted by a group of about 10 off-trail runners crossing the meadow being led by their loud mouth fitness guru.
As I was leaving the TH parking lot to start the hike a pickup truck with 7 young people (late teens by my estimation) came driving up and they started preparing to go on the hike. That's when one of a teenager's worst nightmares occurred. One of the guys accidentally dropped his smartphone into the depths of the extremely odorous outhouse!  Note to self: Don't carry your smartphone in the pocket of your loose baggy sweat pants when you go to the toilet. He made a valiant attempt to retrieve it (he was tall with very long arms). One of his friends retrieved a LaCross stick with a basket scoop at the end from their truck and that was tried to no avail. I suggested they amuse themselves by calling his phone whenever someone was using the outhouse. But by then it had slipped off the pile of toilet paper at the center of the hole and disappeared into the brown liquid abyss.
After that incident the hike was quite pleasant although smoke from wildfires had blown in overnight causing havoc with the views. The many hikers I encountered were friendly and several had information about the dead elk incident. The sign board at the TH had a large penciled note just saying "Dead Elk in Lake" which had left me wondering "Which lake?" since this trail is also used for access to Green Lakes. Reminded me of the cryptic notes and verbal messages from my wife. As I found out, in August hikers discovered the bodies of 19 elk which had been uncovered by snow melt on the patch of snow above No Name Lake. It's a glacial cirque on the east side of Broken Top where the trail goes. The mangled bodies indicated they had been killed by a slab avalanche as they were crossing the snow field. It is thought to have occurred some time after the spring of 2016.
I had planned to do another day or two of hiking in the Oregon Cascades before starting the drive back to AZ but when I was at the high viewpoint on this hike I could see heavy rain clouds coming in from the west. With the weather change and the smoke it was time to leave Oregon. I started the drive towards the NE corner of CA with the plan to camp somewhere along the way but the bad weather stayed on my tail all the way to Lakeview, OR. So I got a hotel room there for the night. A good decision since it did rain that night.
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