The Adventure List · Adventure route
Timberline Trail
Forty-one miles all the way around Mount Hood, starting and finishing at Timberline Lodge, through wildflower meadows and moraines and glacier-fed streams that will genuinely try to knock you over. It's the best one-day circumnavigation in the country.
- Distance
- ~41 mi
- Climbing
- ~10,000 ft
- Typical time
- 8 to 14 hours
- Start
- Timberline Lodge
- Season
- Late July to Sept
- Crux
- Eliot Branch crossing
The Timberline Trail is the Wonderland's more accessible cousin: shorter, lower, and a loop that starts and ends at the same historic lodge, which makes the logistics trivially easy. You get Paradise Park's meadows, the moonscape moraines on the north side, waterfalls, and the mountain looming above the entire time.
The complication is water, in the wrong sense. Glacier-fed river crossings, particularly the Eliot Branch, are the defining hazard. Flow varies dramatically with the time of day and the heat, and the crossings have been washed out and rerouted multiple times in recent years.
How to get in
- Self-supportedJust run it
Free-use wilderness self-issue permits are typically available at trailheads for day travel. Most people start at Timberline Lodge and run counterclockwise, though either direction works. Central Cascades permit rules have changed in recent years for some Oregon wilderness areas, so verify the current requirement for Mount Hood Wilderness.
- PermitOvernight travel
Backpacking may require a wilderness permit depending on current regulations and entry point. Check before you go.
The crossings
- Cross glacial rivers in the morning. Melt increases through the day, so a crossing that is knee-deep at 8 a.m. can be dangerous at 4 p.m. Plan your direction so the worst crossing happens early.
- Eliot Branch is the crux. It has washed out repeatedly and the route has moved. Check recent trip reports for the current line before you go.
- Poles help enormously for the crossings and for the moraine climbs.
- Snow lingers on the north and east sides into July. Late July through September is the reliable window.
Questions runners actually ask
How hard is the Timberline Trail?
Roughly 41 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing, so it is a big day but comparable to a hilly 50K. The glacial river crossings, not the running, are what make it serious.
Do I need a permit?
Day travel typically only requires a free self-issue wilderness permit at the trailhead. Regulations in Oregon wilderness areas have changed in recent years, so confirm before you go.
Go to the source
Entry rules, dates, standards, fees, and odds change every single year, and the interesting races change them the most. Use this guide to build the plan; use the official site to confirm the details before you book anything.
If this is your kind of thing
Want a coach for this one? Timberline Trail rewards a plan more than it rewards enthusiasm. We match you with a RunRace USA coach who has taken runners to this kind of goal before, for $99 a month.
Need the races in between? The hard part of a big year is everything else on the calendar: the qualifier, the tune-up, the long run with a bib on.