Hiking Tidbits Mountain

With all the adventures and shenanigans this Spring and Summer, it’s taken a little while to settle in to the new homestead, but now that the settling in is more underway, there has been some serious exploring for me to do in my new surroundings. One of my favorite things about my partner, Corey is his love for hiking. Over the last several years he has hiked the trails all over the McKenzie River drainage and the central Cascades. I’ve been hearing all these stories about the great trails he’s been wanting to show me, so it’s been a real treat this week to get out our hiking boots and go.

We went with my daughter and a friend up Tidbits Mountain on Monday, and it was nothing short of spectacular. It wasn’t a terribly long hike, only about two miles, through old growth forest with a bit of a steep climb at the end up to the rocky outcropping where a fire lookout once stood.

We saw some eye catching plant life along the way, like this red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa)

A beautiful purple flower that I think was some type of Gentian. Positive plant identification is welcome.

And, much to my delight; huckleberries! They were a delicious snack, and I’m excited to find some spots for picking in my new locale.

Once we made it to the top of the rock outcropping, the views were incredible, and we were able to identify a good number of landmarks we knew around the area. Corey, of course, knew quite a few more than I did, but I’m learning.

The rock outcroppings were particularly impressive. This one across from us was not unlike the one we were sitting on, and gave us a good perspective of the landscape.

My daughter enjoyed finding a geocache by a little tree at the top, and made a journal entry to let folks know we had been there.

Exploring new places is always fun, but it’s an even better feeling when you are getting to know your home ground. By the time I’m old, I aim to learn this mountain range like the back of my hand, and I hope my children can come to know it as well as I knew the Olympic Mountains by the time I was a young adult. There’s no better place to start than by hitting the trails. There are plenty of mountains to climb.

Here are some directions from the USFS website for you explorers out there:

Access #1: From Blue River proceed east for 3 miles on Hwy 126; turn
north on Rd 15 and follow it up for 4.5 miles to Rd 1509. Take Forest
Road 1509 for 8.5 miles to Forest Road 1509-877. Steep road to parking
area.

Access #2: Alternate access to Tidbits Mountain is from the north on
trail #3398. From Sweet Home travel east on Highway 20 for 14.2 miles
and turn right on Road 2022 (Canyon Creek Rd). Turn right on Road 2026
and travel 7.6 miles to Road 335. Turn left and travel 3.1 miles to the
trailhead on the right.