I started the summer hiking season with the Paradise Park Trail and I wanted to see if my conditioning had improved by finishing the season with the same trail. I went further and higher this time and finished strong but diffidently tired. Some Fall color was out and all of the plants were dying back getting ready for the first snow of the season. There was still a hazy in the air that kept from getting clear view of the surroundings but Mt. Hood stood out very clear. I did 16.5 miles with a little over 3500 ft. elev. gain. I was on the trail for about 10 hours (spent an hour and half of that stopping to take pictures) and got to around 6200 ft. on the mountain.
Paradise Park Trail Hike
I had not hiked the Paradise Park Trail #778 in a number of years and was happy to hike it again and see what had changed. My first challenge was finding the new trailhead and finding very large pile of logs taking up most of the parking lot. Once maneuvering around couple of piles of logs I found where the new trail head began.
By the numbers 15.5 miles, 3000 ft. elevation gain and on the trail for about 8 hours.