The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

This is a great time of the year for wildflower viewing. However, due to the poor snow year, blooms are occurring earlier than ever; so, there is no time to waste if wildflowers are an interest of yours. Few places have more to offer in the wildflower arena than Cone Peak Meadows.

Among wildflower enthusiasts, Cone Peak is well known; but, for the casual wildflower observer, it may be off the radar. The trail is 35 miles west of Sisters on Highway 20 and is easily accessed on paved roads. At less than 5 miles round trip and an elevation gain of 1,000 feet, this trail is an excellent family outing. In fact, several family groups were on the trail when I was there last week.

This hike takes off from the parking lot at the summit of Tombstone Pass and drops down onto Tombstone Prairie before heading up the south side of Cone Peak. The trail crosses Highway 20 at milepost 64, but don't attempt a shorter hike by parking there, because there are numerous "no parking" signs on the highway.

Use care in crossing the highway. Although narrow and winding, this is the longest U.S. Highway in the country, stretching from Newport, Oregon, to Boston Massachusetts; and many cars travel through here at speeds well in excess of 55 mph.

After crossing the road, the trail heads east for a little over half a mile before switchbacking up Cone Peak. Yes, there are switchbacks; but none of this trail is as steep as the one up Black Butte, nor is there as much elevation to be climbed.

Most of this trail is in a beautiful shaded forest that is worthy of admiration, even without the goal of wildflowers. Ferns and dense forest plants abound. Twice, little voles scurried across the path in front of me. You don't have to wait for the meadows to start seeing wildflowers. There are many flowers on the forest floor. Among the more prominent forest flowers last week were the red columbine, wild rose, and tiger lily; although the trillium blossoms were already spent.

The most obvious forest flowers right now are on the acres of thimbleberry bushes, which are in full bloom. The prolific white thimbleberry blooms promise a bumper crop of thimbleberries this year; but then it takes a lot of thimbleberries to amount to much. They are certainly edible but are neither very juicy nor especially tasty, They look kind of like a flat, dry raspberry.

Towering firs dominate the forest on Cone Peak's slopes. Both Douglas fir and multiple true firs are found here, along with hemlock. Midway through the switchbacks, however, there are groves of an unusual tree, which - while native to Oregon - is not very common. This is the Alaska yellow cedar.

Most yellow cedars here are not very large. Larger, old-growth specimens, however, can be found at nearby Echo Mountain. The shaggy bark and flattened needle clusters make this an easy tree to spot.

As the trail nears the meadows, there are some mini-meadows in the forest that have formed around some rock outcroppings near the top of the switchbacks. When the trail finally leaves the forest, it emerges into a vast openness of meadows, with expansive views in all directions.

The trail wanders upward through the meadows and eventually crests at a natural stopping point, where it dips down again and heads toward the saddle that joins Cone Peak to Iron Mountain. This area is a great place to stop for a rest or lunch break. At a pace that can only be described as a saunter, I reached this spot after a very leisurely hour-and-a-quarter stroll from the parking lot.

Here in the meadow, I heard my favorite bird call - that of the Swainson's thrush, which always reminds me of summers at my grandparents' forest cabin.

Hikers who want more of a challenge can continue along the same trail, which climbs all the way to the summit of Iron Mountain for a total climb of nearly 2,000 feet. Return is possible via a different route, which drops back down to the Tombstone Pass parking lot for a loop hike of just over six and a half miles.

A Forest Service brochure, that may be available at the trailhead, states that "Nearly every wildflower found in the Western Cascades - over 300 species - can be found along the Iron Mountain Trail!" So, it is hardly possible to individually list all the flowers I saw on this visit. A few, however, include the coneflower, mountain cat's ear, woolly sunflower, owl's clover, scarlet gilia, blue headed gilia, various penstemons, paint brush, and many, many more.

As the summer progresses, many of these flowers will fade away; but their place will be taken by others, such as fireweed and the ubiquitous lupine, which is only just beginning to bloom.

Returning by the same route provides a pleasant and relaxing hike, and the slope is gentle enough to preclude the type of jarring descent that is common on some of the steeper trails in our area.

It is worth noting that trail maintenance does not seem to have caught up to this area yet this year. Several downed logs block the trail in spots. Some have been in place long enough to have developed well-worn bypass trails. Also, the trail has a fair number of deep holes that appear randomly and are deep enough to cause injury if a careless hiker is not paying attention.

After carefully crossing back over the highway, it is possible to take an alternate route back to the parking lot by taking the nature trail around Tombstone Prairie. The tombstone for which the area is named marked the site of the 1871 burial of 18-year-old James A. McKnight, who died of a gunshot wound near the mountain pass that would be named for his tombstone. The tombstone was toppled by vandals a few years ago, and only the broken base is visible along the nature trail.

Along the western end of the nature trail, trail maintenance is again lacking. At one point, I briefly lost the trail because it was so badly overgrown with bracken ferns and other undergrowth. Finally when the nature trail rejoins the main trail, there is a bit of an uphill slog to the trailhead. It's easy to forget about what was a mild downhill run at the beginning of the hike!

To reach Tombstone Pass, travel west from Sisters to the Santiam "Y" and turn left to stay on Highway 20. Travel another 3.5 miles and stay straight on Highway 20, ignoring the Eugene turnoff. From there it's another 7.9 miles to the summit of the pass. This is a fee-use area.