Day off run: Green Canyon blowdown extravaganza
Susan, Ann, and Mt Hood at Devil's Peak For our June day-off run, we were ready for Salmon River, one of our favorite routes over the years. Ann had read some reports of manageable snow and downed trees, but since there's a part of the route that always has a number of trees to climb over, we assumed that the folks who report just might not be used to it. We were wrong. Sunbeams through the trees on the steep slope of Green Canyon We decided to do the loop backwards from our usual, starting up Green Canyon to get the blowdown out of the way, ending with the Salmon River Trail so there'd be water for Cedar during the hotter part of the day. Green Canyon is so steep that we can't even run part of it downhill, our normal direction, so hiking up it wasn't that bad. Then we hit Hunchback and the adventure began. There were some trees down across the trail. It wasn't that bad. We climbed over them. Fairy slipper orchid But soon it wasn't just trunks. It was branch...