Mary's Peak July 2010

Mary's Peak is a great place to go in the Coast Range to get a good look at the Willamette Valley and out to the coast. I didn't pay that close attention to how long the drive is from Philomath, but its about 15 minutes to the turn off from Hwy.34, and then 9 miles to the top on a winding road. Figure another 20-30 minutes up. The first time up was with a friend who wanted to hike up on a whim to just get out of town, so we drove up and hiked the trail to the summit. From the parking area, its about .8 to the summit at 4,097'. Now, I knew there were other trails around the Peak, but didn't know any of them until doing a little research after the first trip up. I went back up on July 19th, and tried some of the alternate trails. About halfway up the main Summit access road/trail, the Summit Trail / Meadow Edge trail takes off. I chose that route to the summit, then looped back down on the main trail and did the Meadow Edge. Meadow Edge will either loop you back to the start, or you can take another trail to the Mary's Peak campground, which is the route I picked. Then I huffed it up the blacktop a mile or so back to the truck. Pretty mellow, but a good hike none the less. I also tried hiking the North Ridge Trail that starts off of Woods Creek Road, but the bugs were so frickin' nasty that day, and I forgot the bug dope. Oops, I'll hit that one later. Right now I'm aiming higher!