Browder Ridge

My friend and future neighbor Neil texted about going for a hike. I was always up for a hike, so we made a plan to hike Browder Ridge. I had not been up there before and neither had Neil, so it was a good choice. He choose to drive to the Gate Creek Trailhead which was off the road heading up from Ikenick. It was a pretty quick and easy drive with fairly good forest service roads. We found the trailhead sort of hidden near the creek across the road from where we parked. The trail went up quickly with a lot of switchbacks. It was going to be a warm day, but the morning was nice with some cool air. We did a lot of the work right away and then the trail started to flatten out once it got to the ridge. 

Then the hiking became easier with open views. It was good to catch up with Neil. He used to be an administrator at our school, but had taken a job with the state in the last few years. I used to see him daily, but now it was just once in a while, though he still is currently coaching basketball. He also bought the property right next to us, so we got to discuss the joys of trying to build a house. Our goal for this day was to take the trail to the top of Browder Mountain and down to Heart Lake. It was still pretty early in the season, so I wondered how the snow conditions would be. So far so good as this side of the ridge was open without any issues. There were nice big meadows and views for miles. We could even start to see the rugged summit of volcanic rock appearing.

A few more switchbacks later and we were approaching the summit. We followed the trail and it went down toward Heart Lake. Almost immediately, we knew this was not going to work. There were several feet of snow and no sign of the trail. We could probably make it, but after a while, we both mutually decided that it was not worth it to fight the post holing and bright reflections of the snow on this day to get down to the lake. So we turned around and went back the way that we had come. The summit was only a short jaunt over from where we had followed the trail down toward Heart Lake. We took that and in no time at all we were standing on the summit of Browder Mountain. 

We enjoyed the view and had a quick snack up on top. Then it was time to head back down. We saw a couple of groups heading up with varying chances of success as we went down. It was really a great day hiking with Neil. The sun was out. It wasn't too hot or too cold. The bugs were not bad. It was only about 8-9 miles roundtrip. The conversation was good and the views were plentiful. I would definitely return to Browder Ridge as there was another trail coming from the other direction and a trip down to Heart Lake would have to be done at some point. All in all a great day enjoying the Oregon backcountry.