Where we went and why
Yesterday, we went to the Hackelman Old Growth Grove on Tombstone Pass in the Central Cascades. We had planned to go to Iron Mountain for a challenging hike, but it was supposed to be pretty hot that day, so we would have needed to leave the house at about 6AM to beat the heat. The night before, my husband didn't sleep very well, so when he woke up, he decided that he didn't want to make that trek. It's just as well because it ended up being pretty cloudy. It also rained that morning. We decided to go to a pioneer grave site at Fish Lake and the Hackelman Old Growth Grove. When we got to the road for Fish Lake, the gate had been closed, so we skipped that one and just did Hackelman Old Growth Grove. All of the pictures were taken with my camera phone since I did not remember to put the battery back into the camera after I charged it. Hubby didn't take any pics this time because his phone was dying.
How to get there
Hackelman Old Growth Grove is on Hwy 20 a few minutes east of Sweet Home. There are signs letting you know it's ahead and then another sign when you get there. There is plenty of parking.
The Hike
The trailhead has a nice map of the hike. There's a wide path with packed gravel that is labeled as handicap accessible. I wouldn't want to be pushing a wheelchair on it, but it is pretty wide and level. The path is supposed to be a one mile loop. There is also another path that's listed as a hiking path. It's narrow and mainly consists of packed dirt. For the most part, it's pretty level, but there were a couple of steepish parts. They don't last long. There were some steps going up as well. This section also had some small offshoots that brought us right up to the water. There were several different flowers along the hike. There were some really big trees as well. There were plenty of trees that had fallen across the path, but they had been cut so they did not black the path.
Overall Thoughts
There's not much else to say about this hike. It was short and sweet. It had some nice scenery, but not real destination. There was a vault toilet (translation glorified outhouse). If you're driving by, I would suggest stopping here to do this hike, but I wouldn't make a special trip to get there since it's so short and there's nothing really spectacular like a waterfall or some major scenic vistas.
The Video
If you like the pictures, check out my Hackelman Old Growth Grove YouTube video.
BodyMedia Screen Shot
I didn't expect much different than what this shows. I didn't realize that I had stopped so many times, but I was on a picture taking frenzy. I'm surprised that the calories per minute is higher towards the end though. Usually when I go up hills, I slow down so much that my calories per minute is lower. I'm pretty bummed about being under 3,000 calories for the entire day, but really other than the hike, I sat on my butt in the car or on the couch. I should be thrilled I got as high as I did.
BackCountry Navigator
I thought my 21 day free trial would have been over by now, but the app still works, so I'm going to keep using it. I'm sure I've jinxed myself now. The 1.4 miles agrees with MapMyHike and RunKeeper close enough that I feel like we went about that far. The max speed is wrong and always is. I wish I could figure out how to fix that. It didn't feel like we went up 73 feet. I know there were some steepish parts, but it just didn't feel like 73 feet.
MapMyHike
Here is the MapMyHike screen shot. According to this, there was 100 foot elevation change. That surprises me since it just didn't feel like much. Although, 100 feet really isn't much. I just remember the on short section with an incline though. It really didn't feel like 100 feet. They really need to recalculate their calories burned since it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of whack.
RunKeeper
This calories burned on this seem a wee bit more inline with reality. The elevation on his screen shot versus the MapMyHike is a bit different too. This thinks I was higher than the MapMyHike. I really wish I knew which one of these things was more accurate! I keep using all three of these apps because I don't really trust any of them completely.
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