Top quality backpacking w/in 6hrs of Portland OR?

Volcanic peaks dominate instead of upthrust. Start at Mt. Hood and head south – Mt Jeff and Three Sister wilderness areas are among my favorites.

You can drive to the Canadian border in that much time, so you have your pick of the Washington Cascades, Olympic National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, or North Cascades National Park. http://www.wta.org will give you all access to most of the Washington trails. http://www.nwhikers.net has a great trip reports forum so you can tune into the snow issues we're having on a lot of trails.

For day hikes, there is a book called "60 hikes within 60 miles of Portland" that will keep you busy :) 6 hours should get you anywhere in the Oregon Cascades.

6 hrs is a long time! you could easily reach into Eastern Oregon and hit the Wallowas/Eagle Caps.

Good sources of information:

Doug Lorain: "Backpacking Oregon" and "Backpacking Washington"

William Sullivan's guidebooks

http://www.portlandhikers.org for Oregon and SW Washington–forum and an excellent Field Guide

http://www.nwhikers.net for the rest of Washington, especially areas near Seattle

http://www.wta.org for Washington trails

Also in WA state:

Alpine Lakes Wilderness and Glacier Peak Wilderness.

+1 on Olympic, Mt. Rainier and North Cascades. There is a reason these are National Parks and why the Wonderland Trail gets such accolades!

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thanks for the feedback! For those have you who have been to both, would you go to Eagle Cap Wilderness ahead of Sierra's?

Any intel on snow levels in Eagle Cap in mid-July? Or know where to find it? Thx!

This year was an extraordinary year for snowpack in all the western US mountains (except Arizona and New Mexico). There will probably be significant snow left on almost all higher-altitude locations in the Pacific NW in mid-July, and the Wallowas will be no exception.

This site is a good way to keep track of how much snow is left per satellite photos: http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/
Click on the region you want and then click the Snow Depth map.

Watch for trip reports on Portlandhikers.org and NWhikers.net. I've never had much luck getting accurate info from the US Forest Service in Enterprise,OR but it's probably a good idea to call them anyway. Right now, they can't predict mid-July conditions because the melting rate all depends on the weather between now and then.

For a Plan B or Plan C (good idea to have anyway), areas more likely to be pretty well melted out by mid-July are the eastern Pasayten Wilderness in northern WA (Boundary/Pacific NW Trail), the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness south of John Day, OR and Steens Mountain in SE Oregon.