The Salmon River starts at the Palmer Glacier on the south side of Mt. Hood. Hiking time: 371 minutes and 5.45 seconds, or 6 hours and 11 minutes. The climb was only 950 feet (all in the last mile and a half) and the round-trip distance was only 7.6 miles.

This has one of the highest payoff/effort ratio of any hike I know. Took 245 photos of which "only" 90 made the cut. The ecstasy of the environment obviously made my critical faculties take flight. Took the 12-40mm and the 75-300mm lenses, the latter because I knew there were lots of telephoto cliff details I wanted to capture on this hike. Hung a lens from my waist belt, so both lenses were always available, not inconveniently packed away in my day pack.

The last time I went on this hike was 2012 09 (Sep) 24 and I wore a relatively new pair of Asolo hiking boots that were too small and the relatively steep descent from the lookout point hammered my toes and made my lunulae black and blue. To this day the Asolo boots hardly show any wear, because on that hike it was the last time I ever wore them. It was an extremely painful experience and I have nothing but unpleasant memories of that hike! (My inauspicious memories were aggravated by not being in very good shape at the time compared to now; this time I didn't even get tired; after all, this is not a very difficult hike, as glorious as it is.) My big left toe lunula was black and blue until about March, 2014, or black and blue for 18 months! However, now I have new Danner boots that are very generously sized and they're actually more comfortable going downhill than going uphill. They are the only boots I've ever owned for which I can say this. Hiking boots are almost always harder on your feet going downhill than uphill.