PEAK PUTTERS

Given it was Memorial Day weekend, the rulebook says the dollop of Wilcox should have been camping somewhere deep in the Oregon wilderness... However, due to various circumstances well beyond my control, this sadly was not the case for Memorial Day weekend 2025 However, the man/myth/legend known as OG was on task, with a nice little campsite setup near Milk Pond. My smoke signal reading was a little rusty, but I managed to scratch out a rough translation of meeting at his porch circa breakfast time on Sunday morning, so my daughter and I launched shortly after 0600:



Everything was looking tidy at mission control as we made the trek Westward under a beautiful morning sky:



Just entering the curves beyond the Hwy 12/410 junction, we came upon a heard of sheep with no particular interest in leaving the roadway:



Soon enough we found OG:



After a brief BS session and a delicious burrito and cup of coffee, we loaded up the steeds and headed for Raven's Roost, via the Pipeline trial:







It was shockingly dusty; more reminiscent of Naches in late July rather than Naches in late May Finally, mercifully, we had gained enough elevation to find moisture and eventually snow. Nasty, rotten, late-spring snow:





Continuing to weave our way along, the snow came and went as we gained elevation rapidly through the latter portions of the trail as it crosses NF-1902 several times:







With barely a stone's throw of trail between us and the summit, we came upon enough snow to stop us in our tracks... the combination of climb angle and crappy snow conditions made it to where the juice simply wasn't worth the squeeze, although OG decided to squeeze for little while anyway:





The view looking back to the East wasn't terrible:



We turnt tail and found the next available intersection with NF-1902, and proceeded to mob the rest of the way to the summit:









It's always great to be up on top of the dirt pile, and days like this just don't seem to come around often enough: