Good morning Julie and Tom here we're at
the Mount Thielsen trailhead in Central
Oregon. I'm guessing they're working on
the sign because the sign doesn't say
anything, anyway today we're going to be
hiking in the Mount Thielsen Wilderness we're
going to be crossing the Pacific Crest
Trail this hike is roughly I think about
nine miles with about 3,900 feet of
elevation gain. This mountain is a
volcano that last erupted 250,000 years
ago it's been eroding ever since. Right
now it's a sharp pinnacle they call it
big cow horn because it looks like a cow
horn so it should be a great hike let's
go see what we find.
so we're heading off on the trail,
it's September 18th 2018 right about
eight o'clock in the morning and when we left the car it was 29 degrees. There's a
look at Mount Bailey the Sun coming up
on it Diamond Lake down below so far the
trail is pretty nice
it's obviously well used and it's been
climbing steadily but fairly gently so
far.
Here's our first trail sign we've seen
it says Mount Thielsen trail two miles
back to the trailhead the way we came
which is that way and there's also an
intersection here with spruce Ridge
Trail, Howlock Mountain Trail is two
miles that way and we're headed up this
way. There's our first glimpse of the
mountain I don't know if you can see it.
Well there's big cow horn looks pretty
steep doesn't it?
one toilet paper, two toilet papers, three toilet 
 papers four toilet papers, can't
anybody at least bury their toilet paper
if you need to use it out here it'd be
nice for us anyway
thank you. About another ten steps here's
another toilet paper here's all you
would really need to do Julie will
demonstrate there, done
better. Well here's a little Ridge that's
a nice overlook you can see up to the
sisters in the background there and
directly into the Sun to our right is the mountain we're looking at climbing today
there it is, the lightning rod of the
Cascades. Here is the intersection with
the PCT I see the PCT symbol there on
the tree there's a sign here that says
Windigo Pass trailhead to the left
North Crater trailhead to the right it's
about nineteen hundred and forty feet
elevation gain from the trailhead to the
intersection with the PCT and just under
four miles.
Thielsen's dead ahead this way I'm
guessing this is the route up the ridge
straight ahead
wouldn't you think Julie
yeah that's the Windigo pass that's
going to go down that is the PCT so the PCT
goes just beneath Thielsen
 so why don't you tell me your
names Jake, Jared
Collin and these guys climbed up the
Thielsen today on September 18th they've
got Bailey and Diamond Lake in the
background beautiful scene and they said
they had fun on the spire, yeah cool so
good seeing you guys
you can check out my video on YouTube
later on all right nice meeting you guys
have a safe trip back
This is looking back at the ridge we've
been coming up, Diamond Lake in the
background. It's starting to get pretty steep
and a little bit loose Julie's mountain
goating her way up and somehow I've got to
keep up with her
well we're just about running out of
trees we're up near this band of lighter
colored material we're still running the
ridge here it looks like it goes all the
way up here's off the other direction
well this is the ridge we've been
coming up it's really loose in this
lighter colored stuff and we're getting
towards the end of the tree
line so it's starting to get a little
rockier now with some better footing
which is good because that loose stuff is
kind of rough but that's mountain
climbing for you it's starting to get a little
windy too
pretty cool moonscape up here that's
what 250,000 years of erosion will do
but we're getting there
we've on the final stretch before the
summit pinnacle that's over to Mt. 
Bailey this is mount Julie this is
looking behind us you want to stay out
of this slabby stuff all that
it'll avalanche on you if you're not
careful
Julie's trying to get in it right now
you want to stay over here to the left a
little bit
everything's be loose up here that's for
sure lots of loose footing up here we're
getting there I believe I'm right below
the pinnacle now
well here we are just below the pinnacle
there's the notch look and see what kind
of mountains we can see from here that's
Bailey right next to Diamond Lake this
way one of those is McLaughlin it looks
like Shasta is visible in the very
background the big tall silhouette this
ridge over here is just spectacularly
eroded pretty cool I don't know the rest
of my mountains in this area
This is looking off the back side towards the sisters
and Diamond Peak let's see I think
Little Cow Horn is right over there the
skinniest one pointiest one and then
Sawtooth it's straight down here, that would hurt
I believe that the Lathrop glacier is
down this way
well I guess this is as close as I'm
going to get to the top, honoring my lovely
wife's wishes not to climb it any
further
anyway it's been fun pretty
awesome views that's for sure so it took
us about four hours to get to the base
of the pinnacle that's called the
chicken ledge we're down a little bit
from there now but so it was about 3,700
feet of vertical gain and about right
about five miles just a shade under five
miles and it's a lot of loose footing so
it's kind of a bear getting up
here so those are the numbers let's make
our way back down look at the beautiful
erosion and the ridge we're going to follow
that ridge all the way down the ridge
proper starts about at the crossing of
the PCT and there are multiple routes up
this ridge once you get higher up when
we came up we came up a lot further over
that way it looks like there's a little
better trail over here well we found an
easier way down that's for sure from the
very top we kind of took the roundabout
way up there should be a carin right here
going up this way
because that's the easier way to go
say goodbye to the peak boy this light
colored stuff was a slog coming up here
but it's not bad going down you can kind
of ski although there's no snow coming up it's a real
traction problem you take a half a step
take a full step forward and only get a
half a step credit
well there's Mt. Thielsen behind us
we ran into a few hikers here the
newlyweds what are your names Logan
Drew and Bruce they're heading up
there they've got to get going though if
they're going to make it up there so I
guess they've been up there before a few
times  go beavers alright
alright guys have a good trip
where is Julie
there she is well we're down off of some
of the harder or soft stuff which is
tough going up but not bad going down
a lot easier with trekking poles I want to
do a quick little tip to make sure you
put your your straps on right come in
from the bottom
put the strap between your hand in the
and the grip that way you have downward
pressure you're not depending on your
grip I see a lot of people coming in
from the top and all they do is grip
their pole you're depending entirely on
your on your grip strength your hands
get tired and one other thing when you
have them like this if you were to fall
you drop them on they're out of your way
you can have your hands-free if you're
like this you have your straps on wrong
and you go to drop it nothing happens so
much difference and just it's
improper to to put them on the other way
so that's my little tip of the day going
downhill I grab the horns a lot to fight gravity
There's the PCT going that way it must go just
along the base of the scree there by the
edge of the woods and so we have a quick
four miles back to the trailhead and
we're done with this baby we should be
just about back to the trailhead
give you the final numbers when we get
back we are back to the trailhead there
is a bathroom here this is fee parking
so you've got to have your forest pass
or else it's five dollars daily I
believe the hike took us right around
seven hours, a long time but we kind of
fooled around a little bit got lost a
little on the way up so if you do this
 follow the way that we came down
don't go the way we went up we got a
little too far off to the right as we
were going up
the elevation gain was 3700 feet
and we didn't go to the very
top so.  and that was to the
to the chicken notch we didn't make it
past the chicken ledge but that's okay
we both had fun I don't need to prove
anything so seven hours 10 miles 3,700
feet elevation gain so thanks for
watching the video you guys it's a great
scenic hike and we always appreciate
appreciate you watching so leave a
comment if you want to and we did run
into a few people up there you'll see
them in the video to so thanks for
watching!
