Larch Mountain Hike
On Saturday the 27th of August I decided to go for a hike. I had a business trip early the next morning so I tried to pack the weekend into one day. In the morning I had an upland game bird clinic with my instructor Bud McDougal at the Hillsboro Trap and Skeet Club. The clinic was to improve bird hunting skills for quail, pheasant, grouse, and chukkar. I took it to improve my shooting skills. It was challenging and after the two hour clinic I shot some skeet with some of the other students I met. By the time I had lunch and drove out to the gorge it was a little after 3:00PM. I stopped at Oneonta trail head. The area is shown in the map above. The sign said Larch mountain 7.7 miles which was a little longer than I had planned. On the drive through Portland I called Redington in the UK and when he asked how long I planned to hike I said 6-8 miles. It was late and I did the math and realized it might be dark before I got back. I had a headlamp with me though. I drew the route on the topo