Summit: 5,045ft
Native Land of the: Cascades, Molalla and Grand Ronde
8m 3,200ft gain
From my experience Devils Peak could be named Angels Peak and I wouldn’t think twice about it. Maybe it’s just better with snow or maybe I’m just crazy but every hiking site abides by the name and describes the trail as difficult. On the summit there’s a nice lookout tower that’s open to the public on a first come first serve basis. It was once a fire lookout because of its stellar views of the surrounding Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness and Mount Hood.
1st Trip: 1/9/21
Moose and I beat the ski crowds out to Rhododendron, Oregon and the Cool Creek trailhead on a perfect Saturday morning after a few days of heavy snowfall. The trail is consistently steep all the way to the summit but we took plenty of stops to roll in the snow. There are also a few breaks in the old growth forest that offer sweeping views requiring more stops!
About 600ft from the summit all previous tracks ended. It looked like no one had gone up in a few days but we pushed through breaking trail to the lookout! Moose stayed right on my tail even though he was getting sprayed with snow.
It was still easy to identify where the trail was.
We passed some gorgeous snowy scenes and Moose took the lead for the final push!
Moose isn’t the biggest fan of lookouts but he enjoyed lunch and a little nap on one of the cots. I really want to come back and stay the night here. It has everything you’d need to survive and thrive!
Moose kindly requested we go back in the snow, so we retraced our steps back to the trailhead. We ended up only seeing two other people.
I think we will make this a yearly winter outing! We both had a blast! A friend of Devils Peak is a friend of mine!
CAPPY TRAILS 