We did a loop. The trail goes down a bit to Tilly Jane (~5900') in ~0.5 miles all in the woods. Saw a deer by the trail. Then up and up via Pollalie Ridge (#600) to Timberline Trail. A little over an hour from TH, you emerge from the woods on to open terrain of rock and mini-flowers. Nothing steep, but non-stop uphill. Very exposed. Bring sun protection, and wind break on some days, not needed today. Soon you come upon this stone shelter. A good place to catch your breath, because you're not even half way yet. View is expansive, down to the brown eastern side of Oregon, St Helen, Rainier, Adams are clearly to the north, as well as Cloud Cap Inn where your car is. Plenty of low lying flowers: penstemon, dwarf lupine, yarrow, two kinds of sedum, a bit of phlox. Most prominent is sand and rock. It feels like walking on beach at times.
Continue up, pick and choose boot tracks. There's one track to the left (south) the shelter, that's more prominent than others, which does long zigzags, good for going up. Elliot Glacier has a lot of crevasses. Flowers disappear as you go higher. At the top of the spur, you can see Jefferson clearly. About 8500' now. I had my lunch here and an ibuprofen (I wasn't in the best shape and was in the slower half of the group). All but one of us continued further. It's a flat ridge walk for 100-200m, and then it goes up a bit, until hitting the steep snow. There's a camp site here!
Coming back is fast. After retracing the track back at the end of Top Spur trail, we were able to glissade down on from here for little bit. Slushy snow, so no danger involved. Then we went cross country, aiming at the south bank of Elliot Glacier, or East Moraine trail #600X. It's a nice ridge walk. At the very end, drop down to the woods, and shortly we are on main trail, and almost to the parking lot.Drove out ~5pm. The 9 mile gravel road is slow and dusty (or it's possible to walk 2.6 miles from the bottom to Tilly Jane, only gaining 1000'). Flowers were blooming profusely along the road amidst burnt trees. Bigger and more colorful (fireweed, lupine and goldenrod). The car I was in headed directly back to Portland, while the other 2 cars went to Hood River for beer and dinner. It takes almost 2 hours to get back to town, with no traffic.
Total about 8 miles, and 3000'.
