FINAL REVIEW of Elk Meadows Trailhead to Elk Meadows Shelter! | 4K | Mount Hood Wilderness | Oregon

This was a 4.5 mile, 1000 FT Elevation Gain Out & Back Day-Hike in Oregon, Mount Hood National Forest & Mount Hood Wilderness, focusing on a key section of the SE Quadrant of the greater Timberline Zone (although not directly hiking on the Timberline Trail), starting at Elk Meadows Trailhead and hiking to Clark Creek, Newton Creek, and ascending the Forest Switchbacks ultimately to Elk Meadows Shelter as the turnaround point of this Hike. This was hiked on 8/5/2023, the weather was overcast with some sporadic rain showers and poor visibility of Mount Hood (still very much worth it!), and there were NO MOSQUITOES on the main hike from Trailhead to Elk Meadows Shelter - the only place there WERE mosquitoes were near the Backcountry Campsites on the Perimeter Loop around Elk Meadows Shelter - but if you take the correct navigational path you don't ever need to do that section, it is entirely optional.

*****AS FAR AS MY KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS HIKE - I think the highlights were actually Newton Creek & Clark Creek, the flows are very heavy and they might as well be Rivers as far as flow veracity, they are indistinguishable from Sandy River in the SW Quadrant of Timberline Loop. The hardest part of the hike is ascending up the Forest Switchbacks from Newton Creek up to the Elk Meadows Shelter Area, that is where the lion's share of the Elevation is - to be candid, I found that section of Forest, to be rather generic and cut and paste, nothing special, and the Elk Meadows Shelter itself is a bit underwhelming, it is made of old wood and partially dilapidated - it is nothing like the proper beautiful Rustic Log Cabin Shelters all around the Winter Play Zone of Central Oregon as a frame of reference. One could argue the views of Mount Hood from Elk Meadow are decent, I didn't get them with the overcast sky, but even had the views been there in their full splendor I would say there are much better Moneyshot views of Mount Hood all around the Mountain in probably about a dozen or more places around Timberline Loop - the hike to Zig Zag Canyon and view of Mount Hood, for instance, is several notches more spectacular and better effort/reward payoff. Also, the signage is poorly done in the Elk Meadows Shelter Area in my opinion, I learned the hard way by needlessly walking all the way around the Perimeter Loop - learn from my mistake, if you're in that Perimeter Loop, you're doing it wrong, do not fall for the idea that you'll get better access to Elk Meadows Shelter later in the loop like I did - there is a straight shot directly to Elk Meadow Shelter RIGHT WHEN YOU ARRIVE at the Loop ascending up from Newton Creek, you DO NOT need to go even for a second on the Perimeter Loop unless you want too, and that Perimeter Loop particularly near the Backcountry Campsites were the only places that had mosquitoes on the entire Hike, I got a couple bites from that section, which is entirely avoidable - reference my videos in this Playlist to save yourself perhaps up to an hour of needlessly walking around looking for non-existent access points to Elk Meadows Shelter. All that said, I'm glad I did it ONCE as a bucket list hike, the Completionist in me likes to have done it, but my main takeaway is that I would recommend to people to only hike from Elk Meadows Trailhead to Clark Creek to Newton Creek as the end destination! You get the best two highlights of the trail - Clark Creek & Newton Creek, and you don't even have to take the risk of doing the Log Crossing over Newton Creek. You also avoid the low quality Forest Switchbacks Elevation Section. That also drops it down to a very very easy 2.2 Mile, 200 FT Elevation Gain quickie you can do more regularly for a dosage blast of beauty with low effort high reward ratio!

Road conditions - It is highway to the paved turnoff road to Elk Meadows Trailhead Parking. I would say the road itself in my humble opinion was in good condition and doable with any vehicle, 4WD NOT REQUIRED - do watch for road conditions as far as snow/ice depending on the time of year and always exercise caution and do so at your own risk!