4.0 hr
Overview
A less crowded approach than the one from the North Burnt Lake Trailhead leads you up to Zigzag Mountain via a forested route that then allows you to take short jaunts east to East Zigzag Mountain and west down to to sparkling Cast Lake, where there are multiple campsites. Views only emerge when you're on the ridge, but then the payoff is great. From the Cast Creek Trailhead in Riley Horse Camp, follow the trail across lichen and moss carpeted Old Maid Flat to join a wide trail, where you turn right. If you’re beginning at the alternate trailhead, you have two options: (1) hike decommissioned FR 1825-380 up to where the Cast Creek Trail crosses it; or (2) follow the wide sandy path, ignoring trails coming in from the horse camp on the right, to cross a small tributary of Cast Creek, which you can hear but not really see. Then head up a shady slope of Douglas-fir and hemlock to cross the overgrown road bed of FR 1825-380. You’ll need to fill out a wilderness permit at the station. The gently graded trail proceeds upward through the salal to switchback above a gully. The route winds around the head of the gully, where you’ll see some larger Douglas-firs. Note also the rotting old snags in the forest, reminders of a long ago fire. The trail crosses a footbridge over a stream and then makes eleven switchbacks up to round the nose of a ridge. The rhododendrons here will be blooming in July. On the crest of the ridge, the trail drops before rising again in five long switchbacks. Keeping near the crest of this ridge, the path becomes bordered by bear-grass and bunchberry, making more switchbacks and a couple of longer traverses. As the tread steepens, you’ll switchback up through a bear-grass/rhododendron corridor and arrive at a high crest with a mixed forest of lodgepole pine, Douglas-fir, cedar, mountain hemlock, silver fir, and noble fir. Here, there are your first clifftop views past East Zigzag Mountain to Mount Hood; Mount Adams should also be visible. Lupine, paintbrush, and penstemon bloom in the small cle
Trail Stats
0.0 km
1185 m
1515 m
0 m
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Photos
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