Olallie Ridge

Three day weekends are awesome because it means that I can spend one day out hiking and still have two days off. Our school had a four day school week and it was fantastic. It wasn't the best for learning, of course, but for weekend adventures it was great. On this weekend I chose to drive the 1993 Road up to the Olallie North Trailhead that would take me up the O'Leary Trail to the slopes of O'Leary Mountain and eventually over to the Olallie Ridge. You would think that in January, this would be a strange proposition, but during this January the base of the trail and the roads were free from snow. That meant that I could hike to my heart's content until I reached the snows above.

The O'Leary Trail is not a friendly one to people just out for a pleasant stroll. It gains elevation at such a rapid pace that it is popular with downhill bikers who can actually access the trailhead from another location on the other side of the road. This part of the road was actually closed due to extensive logging operations and the other way in was too high of elevation to escape the snows. So safe to say, I would not be running into any bikers on this day. In fact, I would not see anybody out here as I may be the only one wanting to see these trails in the winter when they obviously would be much more scenic in the summer time. I knew that I would likely be back in all four seasons on many of these trails, so why not see it in the winter. I climbed steadily with not much of a break. It was a steady push uphill with not much of a break from the evergreen forest and moist ground below. It was perfect weather, which in January one needs to take advantage of. I soon crossed a dirt road and came to a sign that led of in the direction of McLennan and McDuff Mountain. I saved that for another day and instead kept going toward the Olallie Ridge.

I was handsomely rewarded almost immediately with a spectacular view of the Three Sisters cloaked in white with the snows of a winter that had seen plenty of precipitation at the higher elevations. This was a spectacular spot and the only drawback was that since it was so open, I was now going to have to fight the couple of inches of snow on the ground. Still it was not bad and I was able to continue on my way for as long as I could continue to find the trail. The Three Sisters looked amazing and this was the perfect place to take in their alpenglow. I turned a corner and also got great views of Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Bachelor.

I was able to continue on the way until I ran into the trail for Horse Pasture Mountain. Having to fight snow is never much fun, so since I had been to this spot previously, I figured this was a good opportunity to turn around. I would live to fight another day and I was sure that I would return to this point again to continue the Olallie Ridge. Oregon was sure turning out to be different than Utah, but it was still providing me with opportunities to hit the trail and explore places even in the winter months. I turned around and fought the snows back to the solid ground where hiking back to the trailhead mostly all downhill was a piece of cake.