8.5 hr
Overview
The 4 ½-mile long Aiken Lava Bed is one of Mount Adams ’ more recent expressions of volcanism, having been created between 4,500-6,000 years ago from a vent at South Butte. Only the Muddy Fork flow, about 3,000 years old, is younger. This loop takes you through four recent fire zones, those of the 2008 Cold Springs Fire, the 2012 Cascade Creek Fire, the 2015 Cougar Complex Fire, and the 2024 Williams Mine Fire; in many areas, more than one fire overlaps another. The Cold Springs Fire, at 8,000 acres, was the most expensive blaze of its season, but it was dwarfed by the 20,000-acre Cascade Creek Fire. The Cougar Complex Fire burned mostly on the Yakama Reservation, but tongues of the blaze reached the lava bed. The latest conflagration, the Williams Mine Fire, burned over the southern extent of the loop. You head up the Snipes Mountain Trail, one of several old sheep/cattle routes in the area formerly used to take stock to high pastures – nowadays a few cattle graze up here in the summer months. (Ben E. Snipes was one of the original cattle kings in the area: his cowboys' advent around the year 1912 sparked the beginning of the Range Wars with sheepherders. The cattlemen won, and Snipes ran vast herds on rangeland from British Columbia all the way down to The Dalles.)
Trail Stats
23.7 km
986 m
1963 m
—
—
Photos
Trail photo
No caption provided.
Trail photo
No caption provided.
Trail photo
No caption provided.
Trail photo
No caption provided.
Trail photo
No caption provided.
Trail photo
No caption provided.
Trail photo
No caption provided.