Hardesty Mt to Sawtooth Rock + Goodman

After Monday’s walk thru 3-Finger Jack’s burns, time in a green, vibrant forest seemed the right call – as well as staying close-in to both avoid fire smoke and burn as little carbon as possible (car) to a trailhead. The fire situation in OR is bad, just bad. South of highway 58 is all fire.

Ironically, Hardest Mountain and Sawtooth Rock (with a short section of Goodman Creek Trail) are off of Hwy 58, but further west than the fires. This made a great choice – 30 minute drive 1 way, heavy forest canopy above the trail with few exposed areas, nothing recently burnt, solid elevation gains and few people. Hardesty is a common hike for me, all the Hardesty posts.

I found Hardesty a perfect respite from recent hot, hazy, dusty burn walks from Santiam Pass. For Hardesty, a hiker needs to sign up for a) elevation gain, b) no views, c) lots of trees, and d) an occasional MTB racing down the hill, but its cool, shady and quiet. Once the highway noise drops, the forest quiet is remarkable.

Trail conditions

I started early morning with 1 car in the parking lot (sleepers in their roof-top tent) went straight up to Hardesty and curved around toward the upper trailhead to catch a vista. Then, I walked over to Sawtooth and turned around stopping at Hardesty Summit. From there, to the Goodman Creek trail and up the creek for several miles and turned around back to the car.

Prior to sunrise, a Great Horned Owl was calling not far off. Sunrise was like something out of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and the ur-Lords; a sick red sun from all the fire smoke (my camera totally failed to get a photo thru the trees). Trail is clear but hard surface given the mountain bike usage, but not overly rutted out. There was 1 blow-down that would be a bit tricky on MTB but hikers climb over. The trail between Hardesty and Sawtooth is much narrower from less traffic.

Other than that, the trail winds through the forest and if one pays attention – about 3-4 different forest types.

Two vista points provided views to the south where the Cottage Grove complex fires are burning.

More flowers

Most of the wild flowers were gone by this time … yet a couple of tiny flowers caught my camera.

Data Geek Corner

• Carbon Karma: 1 hour driving = 3 hours hiking objective
  • Actual: 8.5 hours moving
  • Bank: +5.5 hours
  • Cumulative 2024 = +28.3 hours
• Hike times: start 5:30 end 3:30 (rounded)
• Length: 21.5 miles
• Elevation gain: 4,807 ft
• Pace: 25:28 min / mile, stopped time 28m:47s
• Weather: Sunny but some fire haze, 60-75 degrees
• Description: fast hike with trekking poles, mesh trail runners, very fast trail but elevation gain >4,500, mixed use trail 0 hikers, 2 riders on trail entire time