Charlie Bottita's Adventures: Gunsight Ridge to Badger Creek Wilderness

I found the Badger Lake hike on the Porltand Hikers website. This hike looked interesting and challenging. The challenging is an understatement. The first few miles were like hiking up the side of a building. It took an hour to reach the top of the ridge. My total miles of 18+ miles does not tell the story. There were a lot of up and down. over 3500 ft of gain in this hike. The hike was supposed to be a loop to Badger lake, but when I got down near the lake, the trail was non existent. It may have overgrown, or it was hiding well. I will go back some day to find it. But will take it from across the other side of the lake. See below for info on each of the pics. I started the hike at HWY 35. There are primitive roads to avoid the initial climb, but cars cannot pass on them.

This is my actual route. Looks like the GPS was bouncing a bit near the beginning.

This is what the route should have looked like.

You can see the steep ascent at the beginning of the hike. My legs were screaming by the time I got to the top.

The view of the mountain before my hike.

This is the East Fork of the Hood River. Check out how much silty the water is. Not quite good for drinking.

This is one stretch at the beginning.

I saw many Elk and Deer tracks. But none of the animals. I did see a grouse, that scared the heck out of me.

Rock Formation on the way up the initial climb.

The top of those rocks is where the view of Mt Hood in the next pic was taken. It is near the top of the first climb.

Near the top of the initial climb, this resting spot was very welcome. Mt Hood playing peek a boo as he did most of the day.

The initial climb trail name is Gumjuwac trail. There used to be a sign here that explained what that meant.

Here is what the sign looked like with the explanation of the name of the trail.

Along the ridge top were some spooky trees.

Not quite sure, but this could be the reason this is Gunsight Ridge. The rock formation seems like the gunsight at the end of a gun barrel.

This was to be the lake I looped by. Badger Lake

Along the trail, it darts off to a dirt road for a bit. There is a trail to Jean Lake. I took the detour to there.

On the trail down to the lake, there were hundreds upon hundreds of these frogs. They are as small as my pinkie finger nail. I had to work hard not to squish them.

The stream leading to the lake. Was my first water refill.

Some interesting berries. These were isolated to this one spot, but several bushes.

This is a meadow near Windy Campground and near the lake. I can imagine elk feeding in this.

Several of the ridges had drops straight down. Quite steep in spots.

On Gun Sight Ridge. Lots of unique rock formations all along the ridge. Great resting spots.

I could sit and take this in all day.

This is looking towards Hood River. Mt Adams in the background.

On one side of the ridge is Mt Hood, and the other is the desert beyond the trees.

Badger lake again.

Mt Hood

How steep the ridge line is.

Saw these flowers and have no idea what they are.

Another awesome water refill spot. I had my Steripen to make sure the water was safe to drink. The water was coming right out the side of the hill. It was so cold too.