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The whole crazy idea came about from Max. He and my buddy Nico were traveling to Portland (from Quebec) for a work trip and wanted a wild adventure. When they began doing research about the Portland area, the Timberline Trail quickly came up in the search. Having heard awesome things about it, Nico reached out to me to share his excitement for the endeavor. The plan was to fly in on Sunday instead of Monday to leave time for an overnight endeavor before Monday afternoon meetings. It just so happened that Sunday-Monday were my days off that week and I’d been scheming some kind of long trail adventure anyway, so it was a no-brainer to hop in on the fun. It’s a totally crazy idea, but I wasn’t going to let the guys play on the TImberline Trail without me!
I waited in the parking lot for a bit of extra time, napping and snacking. There were some hang-ups in getting the rental car and grabbing food for the long night out. Nico (who I haven’t seen in 4 years), Max (his good buddy and coworker), and a new friend Blake (Portland-based runner that works for their company) spilled out of the rental car into the Timberline Lodge parking lot around 8:30pm and we discuss final logistics while preparing and making our way to the trailhead. Official start time was 8:55pm. With the self-issue wilderness permit in hand, we set off into the sunset. Energy of the excitement filled our souls and fueled our smiles.
The first few miles came easy with fresh legs and a very long downhill to start. As we descended from the Lodge, so did the sun and our headlamps came out quickly. We chatted, catching up and getting to know each other, as we trotted down the trail. It wasn’t long before we started to feel a natural spread as our paces differed a bit and we adjusted to hold the group together. There was a pretty solid understanding that we’d regroup as much as possible. This mostly happened at trail junctions, river crossings (of which there were many), the tops of hills (also a lot of), or at a rock that seemed nice to sit on. It was also a great chance to either refill water, have a snack, or mentally regroup for the next challenge.
As we dove deeper into nighttime we came across the reroute. We passed the iconic Ramona Falls in the darkness, which hardly did the beautiful sight justice. We went from celebrating its magnitude straight into coming face to face with the closed trail sign. A portion of the NW section of the trail suffered extreme damage from a few storms last September and I’d heard there was some trail clearing going on but that much of the area was still devastated. Based on all the recent reports, the area was still rightfully closed. Based on the areas with downed trees that were open to the public, I don’t want to see what the closed sections look like. We took the marked reroute which looped farther north and linked back up with the Timberline Trail at the Bald Mountain Trailhead. The climb that followed was pretty depressing. This is a wilderness area and route that I fell in love with a few years ago and probably don’t go a week without thinking about. To see the massive trees stacked like matchsticks in a pile was alarming to say the least. It’s clear that the trail work crews are making progress on the route, but it’ll take a while to get it back to the previously functional condition.
The nighttime was funny. It didn’t pass quickly, but I can’t say that it passed incredibly slowly either. Frankly--it didn’t seem like time was passing at all until I looked at my watch and noticed we were an hour or so closer to sunrise. The river crossings were the most interesting part of the darkness. There’s so much glacial runoff from Mt.Hood that these rivers flow quite rapidly down from the mountain, most of them are dirty water so the riverbeds are hidden, and they’re incredibly loud. For most of the crossings we spent time weighing options on the best places to cross. A couple offered simple solutions or small jumps from rock to rock to stay dry, but three gave us enough challenge that we were forced to wade through. And of course the water was freezing cold and mid-thigh deep (only knee-deep for Blake though). We took turns, using our poles to stabilize as we inched through the murky river, the glow of our headlamps on the surface of the water lighting our way 10’ or more across. Nobody fell in, but our shoes were full of gritty sand from there on out. As night wore on we felt the natural fatigue of the darkness. Living in a world the size of your beam of light can be exhausting. I tried to remind the crew that with sunrise comes fresh energy. Just get to sunrise.
But somewhere between 3am and 4am the fatigue really set in and all our energy levels dropped. Sometimes when we can’t quite get to sunrise, we need to sit on a rock by the river and take a nap. Which Max was happy to capitalize on. We turned our headlamps off for a few minutes. Blake and I rested our eyes and Nico devoured the gas station burrito he had been carrying for 20 miles. It reset our minds for the final few hours of night. I may have even briefly dozed off listening to the roaring river we were about to jump over.
I sent Kristen a text that said “5:31am- and then it took us 90 minutes to go 2 miles. The darkness took a toll on the group. Grinding along ~3mph while moving. Just past mile 23 and we got first light. Thank goodness. The sunshine will be great for the boys. I hope we make up time. Looking forward to legit food and a nap. But you know me, high energy as I do.” And that was the truth. The night was tough to get through and it took us until morning to make the halfway mark. But reaching the first light on the north side of the mountain was magnificent. We were treated to a kaleidoscope sunrise. Reds and oranges painted the sky amongst the cloud cover below us. We were back in a good situation.
Leaving the Cloud Cap Campground on the northeast portion, we headed up to the high point on the route. It’s a little bit tougher to navigate because you’re following cairns in the distance, so I briefed the guys on what to expect as we spread a bit. I was facing the kind of exhaustion that wanted to push to cover more ground and others were facing the kind where they wanted to move slower to conserve energy. It can be tough to balance but with a flexible team, it allowed me to climb at my own pace and push Nico to get up the hill faster as well. We trudged two miles through rockier terrain in the hazy morning to a sheltered campsite at 7300’, the high point on the route. We took our shoes off in the shade and snacked while we waited for Blake and Max.
Since we had a little time, I took the opportunity to tune the world out. I pulled out an ultralight jacket for the first time all night, zipped it up, pulled the hood up, tucked a buff wrap over my eyes and leaned against a rock. I don’t remember Blake showing up, but he was in a similar position immediately next to me when I woke up. Nico mentioned that he went to look for Max, and when he came back we were “snoring like an orchestra.” It was one of the best and most necessary 20-ish minute naps on recent memory.
We cruised downhill the next handful of miles, though this may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Morale was up at the top of the climb but everyone was starting to feel the effects of the massive night and day. The additional heat we were experiencing late morning became more intense than we expected and there was still more climbing to be done. We spread out and found a shaded spot to regroup. At 11:38am the boys had hit a wall. We needed some self-care time. It hit Nico hard that he’d been awake for 36 hours so he took a nap curled up in the shade. Blake was having a quiet moment of reflection about only being able to walk slowly because his body was worked and heel blisters got the better of him. 15 minutes later Max, who was barefoot and carrying his shoes, comes walking up the hill because he couldn’t handle the amount of gritty sand in his shoes anymore. I was pretty all set with being in the sun and was thankful for the frequent tree cover. It was the perfect amount of drama. See below:
We slapped a few physical and metaphorical bandaids on the issues we all faced and rallied together to get up the final sand dune of a hill. One mile of sand. The worst but also most fitting end to a wild, brutal, amazing overnight. The Timberline Lodge was our North Star all night. It called up to get up that hill after it challenged us to run around the mountain. A hard-fought adventure culminated with high-5s and PB&J’s in the parking lot. Max had an insane idea on this one. But I also can’t think of a more magnificent one to test the mind, the body, and the friendship of 4 crazy runners. I’m so incredibly thankful to be able to share this with a group of awesome guys. It’s an adventure I won’t forget anytime soon.
(Left to right: Nico, Max, Blake, me)
Gear list:
The North Face Vectiv Infinite shoes
CEP short sock
rabbit FKT 3” short
rabbit EZ Tee perf ICE SS
Petzl Actik Core headlamp
6 backup AAA batteries
Black Diamond trekking poles
Salomon Adv Skin 5 set pack
2x 18oz Salomon soft flasks & 1 Katadyn .6L filter flask
rabbitELITEtrail buff headband
2x cotton bandanna
Arm sleeves
Phone
Garmin 945 GPS watch
Emergency mylar blanket
12 gels (some Gu, some Spring), 2 packs of Clif Bloks, 3 granola bars, 2 Naak waffles, 2 packs gummy snacks
rabbit ultralight jacket
Thin, stretchy, $.99 gloves
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