I was off to hike a new trail today, section of the little used ZigZag Mt. Trail East. To get to it I first had hike all of Burnt Lake Trail. I love the first part of Burnt lake trail with the mix of the monster old burnt trunks and new recovering forest. There were very few folks on the trail this day. When I got to Burnt Lake there were no campers there. After several hours I got to the trail junction with ZigZag Mt. Trail and headed East to see what I could find. The overgrown trail climbs gradually through acres of Huckleberry fields and alpine tree space about. It reminded me of Indian Heaven. I wondered of these fields were once well tended native berry fields like those of Indian Heaven. There was absolute silence when ever I stopped. There was no wind and I think the smoke in the air had sent all of the birds and animal to ground. After pushing my way though brush and reaching the top of Dixon Butte the trail start to crash downward a steep slope. After dropping down a couple hundred feet I recheck my map and realized how much down and up I was going to have to do to get to Paradise Park Trail and decide I was not up for it. But as it turnout my stopping spot was at a point of an almost lost trail that climbed up the ridge to a view point where Hood could still be seen through the trees. The trail spoke to a time when this was a much busier trail and the trail had been well worn by boots treading to this view and hidden camp site. When my conditioning improves would like to come back and finish this trail someday
By the numbers: 14 Miles, 2785 ft, total elav. gain, 8 1/2 hrs on trail, Moving average about 2 mph.
