Sunrise Camp Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
This page is marked as a Lost Hike. The "trail" may be dangerous and hard to follow and is not recommended for beginning hikers without an experienced leader. Carry detailed maps of the whole area and/or a GPS unit and compass. |
- Start point: Bird Lake Trailhead
- Ending point: Sunrise Camp
- Hike type: Reverse lollipop loop
- Distance: 9.6 miles
- Elevation gain: 2860 feet
- High point: 8350 feet
- Difficulty: Difficult
- Seasons: Limited summer/fall opening
- Family Friendly: No
- Backpackable: Yes
- Crowded: No
Contents |
Hike Description
On the east side of Mount Adams, a climber's trail on Yakama Nation land can be fairly easily followed up to 8,300 feet, where you'll find camping spots high above Hellroaring Creek Canyon. The hike takes you well above the vegetation line in an area of blue glacial ice, a melt pond, and rubbly moraines. Mountain goats are frequently present around Sunrise Camp, the final destination. The suggested hike also uses trails around Bird Creek Meadows, where you will visit mountain lakes, a waterfall, and stunning flower meadows. For the user trail section above Hellroaring Viewpoint, and especially around the Mazama Glacier, exercise extreme caution and hike safely!
Hike a little farther along the road past the Administrative Area sign. You can take a short diversion to admire the reflection of Mount Adams in Bird Lake. Almost all the trees around the lake were burned in the 2015 Cougar Creek Fire, and the campground area on the east shore has been clearcut. The ranger/caretaker trailers in this area were destroyed in the fire. You’ll find the Bird Lake Trail #100 leading up to the left. The trail begins to wind up along the east fork of Crooked Creek. Blue badges on trees mark the route. Blueberry bushes turn red in the fall here, and understory blooms in the summer include partridge foot, bear-grass, buckwheat, lupine, goldenweed, aster, and woodrush. Cross the creek on a footbridge, and admire a tumbling cascade on another branch of the creek, which you’ll soon cross. Then cross the main branch of Crooked Creek on a footbridge. Soon the trail enters an unburned forest of mountain hemlock, subalpine fir, and young whitebark pine. The west branch of Crooked Creek runs to the left, and a large meadow appears on the right. The trail recrosses Crooked Creek and snakes up above the big meadow to reach Crooked Creek Falls, 1.3 miles from the trailhead, which plunges over a 50-foot cliff and carries the stream through verdant flower meadows. A short side trail takes you closer to the waterfall.
Continue on the Bird Lake Trail, which hooks to the right to circumvent the cliff. Recross a tributary of Crooked Creek and come to the Round-the-Mountain-Bird Lake Trail Junction, where you need to turn right. The trail drops gradually, crosses another pretty creek, and makes a traverse in mountain hemlock/subalpine fir parkland. You’ll start getting better views up to Mount Adams and cross another stream. After you pass above an old cattle pond, keep left at the junction with the Trail of the Flowers. Ignore an unmarked trail leading off to the right, and continue upward in a colorful parkland of blueberry, heather, and lupine. The trail crosses a lush false hellebore slope and views open up to the slopes below, where the scope of the 2015 fire becomes apparent. The path makes two short switchbacks and crosses the grassy draw of aptly named Dry Creek to reach a viewpoint down over Bird Creek Meadows and the fire damaged forest stretching south.
When you come to the junction with the Hellroaring Viewpoint Trail, keep left.The trail rises more steeply in a parkland of more stunted conifers and gravelly rock faces. At Hellroaring Viewpoint, the world falls away below you down to Hellroaring Meadows, with the cinder cone of Little Mount Adams rising at the lip of the glacial valley. Hellroaring Basin Falls plunge at the head of the valley, and the rugged slopes of Mount Adams rise up the Mazama Glacier to Pikers Peak (the true summit is not visible).
Hike up to your left from the Hellroaring Viewpoint, following a fairly obvious route in among stunted alpine trees: you are now officially off-trail and following an unmaintained climber's route. Follow a bench and head up a slope noting a small cave up to the left. The track rises and swings to the left among outcroppings of whitebark pine. Cresting this particular section, reach a junction with a trail coming in from the left. You'll need to keep right and wind up passing small cairns with a moraine ridge up ahead. Reach the crest of a lateral moraine with expansive views of the Mazama Glacier area and views down to Hellroaring Meadows. The track heads up the ridge a short way and then splits at a rock painted with a red X: continue up the moraine ridge to a wide-ranging viewpoint. To keep going towards Sunrise Camp, the route drops down to traverse and arrive at the lip of a cirque which holds enchanting Iceberg Lake. Snow floes may still be floating and the blue ice of the glacier is visible under the rock debris. Head to the right from the lake on a fairly level traverse, and then make a turn up to the left heading for the point where Hellroaring Creek pours out of the glacier. After crossing the creek, hike up to the western end of the Ridge of Wonders to find flat spots suitable for pitching tents. It is not uncommon to find as many as a dozen mountain goats in this area, so approach slowly and enjoy the encounter.
Return to Hellroaring Viewpoint, and turn down the Hellroaring Viewpoint Trail (the way you came up). Pass the Trail of the Flowers-Hellroaring Viewpoint Trail Junction and, when you reach the second junction with the Trail of the Flowers, turn left on the Round-the-Mountain Trail. You'll hike a short distance through picturesque alpine meadows to reach the junction with the Bluff Lake Trail, where you need to make a sharp right.
The trail drops to mossy Staircase Falls, which runs as a mere trickle in late summer. From the falls, the path makes a sharp left and winds through a beautiful meadow, passing another small mossy waterfall. Step over a creek in a willow/spiraea bog, and then descend between rocky outcroppings to reach Bluff Lake, whose shoreline was scorched in the 2015 fire. The trail follows the shore of Bluff Lake’s sister tarn and, after a slight rise, descends along a creek through a forest of whitening tree skeletons. Pick your way carefully down rock “steps,” and then traverse towards Bird Lake, which you can see in the distance now. Small meadows here bloom with aster in late summer, and you’ll cross a creek before passing into a bowl of false hellebore. The path then switchbacks up to the clearcut area of the Bird Lake Campground. After you reach the campground road, turn left to follow the track back to the trailhead.
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- $20 day-use fee
- In 2023, open July 26th through September 7th (open period may vary from year to year)
- $3.50 toll each way at Hood River Bridge
Maps
- Maps: Hike Finder
- Yakama Nation: Mount Adams Recreation Area Overview
- Yakama Nation: Mt. Adams Recreation Area
- Green Trails Maps: Mount Adams, WA #367S
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Mt. Adams Wilderness, Indian Heaven Wilderness, Trapper Creek Wilderness
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Mt. Adams Ranger District
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: Gifford Pinchot National Forest
- National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map: Mount St. Helens - Mt. Adams
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Sunrise Camp Hike
- Sunrise Camp: 9/25/22
- Iceberg Lake Mt Adams 9/08/2022
- Mazama Glacier Lake (Iceberg Lake)
- Bird Creek Meadows to Iceberg Lake (Mt. Adams)
- Sunrise Camp on Mt Adams
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Sunrise Camp Hike
Guidebooks that cover this destination
- Day Hikes in the Pacific Northwest by Don J. Scarmuzzi
- One Night Wilderness: Portland by Douglas Lorain
More Links
- Sunrise Camp (Dean's Place)
- Mt Adams Sunrise Camp Backpack July 10-12 (Mike's Climbing Blog)
- Mount Adams/Mazama Glacier (The Mountaineers)
- Bird Creek Meadows (Washington Trails Association)
- Bird Creek Meadows Loop (Mt. Adams Chamber of Commerce)
- Bird Creek Meadows Hike (Northwest Hiker)
- Bird Creek Meadows (Flora Northwest)
- Bird Creek Meadows (Mt. Adams) (Northwest Wildflowers)
Page Contributors
- bobcat (creator)