The last time Mia and I hiked up to Tom, Dick & Harry was back in September of 2013. We had only been living in Oregon for 3ish months at that point. Back then we were still in an apartment, had no dog and were just trying to get to know the area we had decided to call home. Now twelve years later, a townhouse bought and sold and a move to our house in The Grove. A couple jobs for Mia, a reclass of my job and many adventures later we decided to check it out again.

A few years ago, the Forest Service had moved the trailhead up towards Skibowl. Gone was the sketchy roadside parking. In its place now is a much larger parking lot, pit toilets and a bunch of trail work for the first mile or so.

The hike to Mirror Lake is still the most popular part of this trail. Most people don’t seem to add on the additional mileage to get to the overlook on Tom, Dick & Harry. The two miles to Mirror Lake can feel a bit busy and almost mall walking on a holiday weekend. There are all experience levels of hikers evident on this first part of the trail. As the trail continues to ascend after the lake, the crowds thin and the views improve.

I wouldn’t label this hike as difficult. It does climb steadily for the majority of its length but it never gets difficult. Given the variety of footwear we saw, some people probably had a tougher time from self-imposed limitations.

We were up and down in just about three hours total. We were both glad we started relatively early because there were a lot more people coming up the whole time we were headed back to the trailhead.

We left Codi at home for this hike. It is hard for us to contemplate that our little fuzzball can’t hike like he used to. We’re choosing hikes close to home so that he doesn’t have to spend all day alone. We did swing into The Meeting Place on the way home for some dinner to toss on the grill. All in all, a good day.

Thanks for reading,

-Pete