Arriving at & Exploring Lower & Upper Twin Lakes! | Pacific Crest Trail | Mount Hood | Oregon | 4K

On December 3, 2021, I went to Frog Lake Sno-Park, aka the Pacific Crest Trailhead to Lower & Upper Twin Lakes traversing gorgeous Mount Hood Wilderness. I was expecting some snow given that it was Winter and had even brought several kits with me aka snowshoes to decide the right traction control based on the conditions, but much to my surprise there was no snow whatsoever on the Trail. The cyclical weather phenomenon known as La Nina had delayed the start of the annual snow deluge by about 3 weeks, even causing one of the latest opening delays of the nearby Ski Lodges in history.

I was the only one on the Trail and in the entire wider Forest area for my entire hike down to Lower Twin Lake and up to Upper Twin Lake. I checked out the Backcountry Campsites around the Lake and added the optional 1-Mile Shoreline Loop around Lower Twin Lake. After hiking up to Upper Twin Lake I continued past it to reconnect with the Pacific Crest Trail and return back to trailhead by completing the Loop.

The entire Hike is approximately 7.2 Miles, 950 FT Elevation Gain through Classic Old Growth Forest, with a 1-Mile additional add-on option of circumnavigating Lower Twin Lake (I highly recommend!) for a total of 8.2 Miles. It was in the Low 20's temperature wise and thick, dense fog rolled in at Lower Twin Lake.