Momaaa oooh

 Thursday Hope, Emma and I hiked Saddle Mountain

 Hope has never hiked it before and really wanted to.  It was Ryley's favorite hike.

 It is a doozy of a hike but very pretty.  I hiked it a couple years ago for my birthday.  It was much nicer this time around, partly because everyone wanted to hike it and when we got to the top we could see the ocean instead of the top's of clouds.

(Emma, queen of the mountain)

 The Picture below is the "saddle part described blow.

Hike Description

Mountaintop views that reach from the Pacific Ocean to Mt Hood await you on this steep climb to the top of a doublepeaked summit of basalt. The upper part of the mountain is decorated with vast steep wildflower meadows in summer.

From the parking area, the trail begins in the campsite area. Get on the paved trail, and for left, passing several walk-in campites. The pavement soon ends, and you will enter a lush forest of red alder, with salmonberry lining the path. At a quarter mile, the trail flattens amidst a carpet of oxalis. You have an option to take a short spur trail to the right for the Humbug Mountain viewpoint, but it is not necessary, you will see it from the summit as well.

Soon the alders will be replaced with Douglas-firs and spruces as you switchback up the hillside. The trail skirts around sedum-covered house sized boulders, a preview for the upper portion of the hike. Nearing the one mile mark the woods are periodically opened for steep meadows-which are in bloom from May through July. The top 500 feet of the mountain is made up of huge basalt dikes. There is very little topsoil. The trail is loose gravel, and recently the tread has been completely covered with a chain link fence material to aid in traction. By a mile and half, you will be traveling mostly through the steep rocky meadows that make this hike famous. Admire the flora and the expansive views, but please watch your step. After a short descent through the saddle area, you will make the final steep climb up to the summit- a triangular cement pad that is the former site of a lookout tower.

 Hope almost victorious. 

 At the end as we were hiking the last part and we were all really tired, I got a burst of energy and passed Emma for a space.  I had gone around a switch back and couldn't see her and I guess she was saying Mommy (she wanted me to pull her to the top).  I couldn't hear her or Hope for a second and then the words from Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody "Momaaaaa  ooohhh" came floating through the tree's.  Something I  will never forget, so funny and so like her.

The picture above and the one above that are the view from the top.  The second one up you can see the ocean (white line, upper left side).  Nice view, worth all the pain from sore muscle's the next day :)  I promise.