Shortest hike I ever took on the Larch Mt. Trail. Got on the trail at about 7:35 AM, which was just before sunrise. Hiking time: 3 hours and 51 minutes, about 5 hours less than I planned because of treacherous ice covering the trail in spots. It was much colder than it was forecast to be. Ice was everywhere. On the way up, I slipped and fell on the ice, smashing both knees hard into rocks and crashed the front of my $1,200 12-40mm Olympus lens into the rocks, harder than ever before. The lens survived without a scratch. My knees really hurt for five minutes but the pain quickly faded away as if nothing happened.

The straw that broke this camel's back came in a spot with a 2 foot vertical climb over a boulder that was coated in 3" of solid, smooth ice. (The last photo in this gallery shows this "straw.") I figured it would be suicide to try to climb over it because it was right next to a vertical cliff about 75 feet down to Multnomah Creek. When I came to this deadly icy spot, I put away all my camera equipment and turned around. The only saving grace to this hike was that there were spectacular ice formations all over the place.

Coming back I had to slide on my bottom in spots, collecting icicles there that were corn holing me as I carefully slid down the trail. On one of my fanny slides, a water bottle was knocked out of a side pocket on my pack and fell down the cliff, lost forever. Ten bucks, shot.

I was very disappointed that the cold weather turned me back well short of my goal, which was to go up the Franklin Ridge Trail. Didn't even get near it. I guess January just isn't a good month to go hiking. I was exhausted when I got back. Pushing myself along on my fanny is what really wore me out. Took 68 photos, all on my tripod, of which 46 made the cut.