1 min
Overview
Little Trillium Lake, with Mount Hood as an incredible backdrop, is one of the more popular day-use and camping destinations in the Mt. Hood National Forest. The roads around the lake are groomed for cross-country skiers in the winter. The lake itself is not natural: the boggy meadows here were submerged by a dam built across Mud Creek in 1960. The Trillium Lake Trail circles the lake and affords a visit, via a series of boardwalks, to its less-trafficked west shore, where a variety of wetland wildflowers can be observed in the summer. Note that this is one of the concessionaire sites (California Land Management) in the Mt. Hood National Forest, and you will have to pay a fee to park. Northwest Forest Passes are not valid. From the day-use parking area, a paved trail leads to the shore from below the picnic shelter. Go left along the shore. The picnic area is shaded by mountain hemlock, western red-cedar, western hemlock, and silver fir. Cross a footbridge and then take boardwalk. This leads to the dam wall. A path leads along the shore below the dusty road. On any fair weather day in the summer, you will not have the place to yourself unless you do this walk early in the morning: other day-users will include paddle boarders, windsurfers, canoeists, boaters, inner tubers, kayakers, and swimmers. Mallards sun themselves on the dam rocks. The view of Mount Hood is a picture postcard scene. After the causeway, the trail leads right below the road into a willow thicket. It’s marked Trillium Lake Trail #761. Take a boardwalk into cedar woods with Engelmann spruce, silver fir, and mountain hemlock. Spurs lead right to the boggy shores. Hike another boardwalk and then pass through a parsnip, mertensia, thimbleberry opening. The path is lined with blooming subalpine daisies in mid-summer. A spur right leads to the lake. The trail winds through spruce-dominated woods and then reaches another boardwalk through willows, alders and then a cotton-grass meadow. Mount Hood peeks above the trees. Head into mountain hemlock/sp
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