Freezing on Table Rock

Revisiting Table Rock had been on my list for quite some time. The hike is fairly close to Portland, has an excellent display of wildflowers in the summer, and features views of the Cascades from Mount Rainier to the Three Sisters. You can even see Table Rock from the Portland area: look for a rocky point to the southeast that looks like a broken thumb.

Table Rock is also another hike that I first did while I was growing up in Salem. My stepdad and I were training to climb South Sister, Oregon’s third-tallest peak. I was 13 and we were trying to get in shape for the hike to the summit a couple weeks later. At 5 miles round-trip and only 1,300 feet of elevation gain, Table Rock was not much of an athletic challenge. My stepdad brought along the camera that day; here is a photo:

I kept a journal of my hikes as a kid, because of course I did. Here’s what I had to say about the hike that day:

I hadn’t been there since the summer of 2014, when I was working on my book 101 Hikes in the Majestic Mount Jefferson Region. Why I hadn’t been back since is beyond me. Our friend Laura invited us on a hike to Table Rock last weekend. We quickly decided to go for it, as it sounded like a fun idea to get up to the mountains in the winter.

Hiking in the mountains in the winter always requires a confluence of good fortune, abnormally dry conditions, and good weather. Interestingly enough, the last time that I had hiked in the Table Rock Wilderness was during the low-snow winter of 2015, when it was possible to hike in the mountains for almost the entirety of winter. Without good hiking conditions that winter, I would not have been able to finish my Mount Jefferson book.

That winter we hiked up to Rooster Rock and Pechuck Lookout at the end of January, and found dry conditions, good views, and a surprisingly crowded scene at the lookout. We also hiked to Rooster Rock and Chicken Rock at the western end of the Table Rock Wilderness, where we found excellent views of Mount Jefferson and points north and south. It is truly wild to me to see how little snow there was in the mountains that winter:

When Laura suggested that we hike Table Rock, I wondered what conditions would be up there. She had heard from a friend that it was possible to hike all the way to the summit, with only minimal snow. That sounded good to us! It has been a strange winter here; we had tons of rain and mountain snow in November and December, but January brought a nearly-unprecedented run of cold but dry weather. I am usually fairly certain what conditions will be like before I commit to doing a hike, but for this one I honestly had no idea. Sometimes it’s nice to be surprised!

We arrived at the trailhead and set out on our hike. It was cold but not too cold, and it felt good to be out. We hit our first consistent snow early on, before we even started climbing. Soon we reached the old trailhead (a washout in 1996 made this hike longer than it was when I first did it in 1994) and began climbing, only to hike out of the snow. The sun warmed us as we hiked uphill:

It always feels strange to be in the mountains in the winter. It feels like you don’t belong there, like you are cheating somehow to be there, like the mountains could decide at any point to tell you to leave. Those of you who hike regularly will no doubt recognize this feeling. For those of you who don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, it is difficult to explain. It dumps snow in the mountains all winter, and the snow stays there until May or June, sometimes even until the end of July. This is where much of our water comes from. So visiting in January always feels strange, and conditions like this generally only come along maybe once every 5-10 years.

We began to hit snow after a mile or so, but it was not consistent. Everyone took the time to put on their microspikes or other traction devices to help navigate the cold, icy, crunchy snow. As it turned out, Wendy and I only had one pair between us. My boots still have fairly good traction and hers do not, so she took my pair of Yaktrax. We soon rounded a corner and reached a saddle below a rock. Laura and a few others took off to go climb to the viewpoint up on the rock, while a few of us waited below.

The wind was howling through this narrow saddle, and we soon got extremely cold. When I mentioned earlier that the mountains will tell you that you shouldn’t be there, this was the kind of moment I was talking about. The winds were blowing about 30mph through the saddle, making for a wind chill of somewhere around 10 degrees Fahrenheit (or approximately -10 degrees Celsius). My face began to freeze in just a couple minutes, while the others waiting in the saddle got freezing and numb fingers and feet. We decided to continue the hike and let the others catch up to us, as we needed to keep moving to get our blood flowing again.

To wit: I am not willing to mess with hypothermia, either in myself or in anyone else. When I was working on my Jefferson book, I managed to become hypothermic on a backpacking trip with my buddy Mike and had to be evacuated from the Old Cascades Crest Trail. We had been hiking all day in wet clothing due to brushy, wet trail conditions, and when we reached camp much later than expected, I had lost feeling in my hands and feet. After attempting to warm me up with a fire, with warm water, and with putting me in two sleeping bags, we decided that I needed to be evacuated. It was the right decision. I was okay, but the memory of this stays with me. It was a traumatizing experience, and I do not mess around with the cold anymore.

Anyway, the others soon caught up to us right as we reached the huge rockslide at the base of Table Rock’s summit pinnacle. We found the rockslide completely covered in several feet of snow with no clear and discernable path through the snow:

The trail wraps around the base of the rockslide and then ascends the woods above the slide, reaching the summit in less than a mile from here. Crossing this slope would be prohibitively dangerous, and we wisely decided to turn around here. I snapped a photo of Laura and her adorable dog Frodo before we left:

After turning around, Wendy and I decided to climb up to the viewpoint of Mount Jefferson that Laura and others had visited on the way up, while I was busy with a frozen face. It’s not the best viewpoint of Majestic Mount Jefferson I’ve ever seen, but it was still exactly what I needed:

Even though we did not make it to the summit, I’m glad we did the hike just the same. I guess we’ll have to go back this summer, when the wildflowers are out and the trail is snow-free.

On the way home, we stopped at the Molalla River Eye, a basalt rock feature above the Molalla River. The viewpoint of the Eye is just off the Molalla River Road, and I make sure to stop here every time I drive up the Molalla River corridor. The Eye was looking especially beautiful on this day:

Here’s another look from downstream:

All in all, it was a fun day with fun people. I’m glad we were able to do this, and I can’t wait to go back in the summer when it’s not frigid. We also bought another pair of microspikes when we got home, even though neither of us plan on being outside in the snow any time soon. Maybe I’ll change my mind before winter is over and try to get outside somewhere in the snow…but it won’t be in the Cascades. Time will tell.

Thanks for reading!

Matt