- Oregon County HP: #19
- Difficulty: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (on a scale of 5)
- Summit Elevation: 9,502 feet
- Mountain Range: Cascade Mountains
- Ancestral Lands: Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla; Takelma; Cow Creek Umpqua; Modoc; Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; and Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Planning Details
Location: Mt. McLoughlin sits in the Sky Lakes Wildness Area in the southern Cascade Mountain Range. This peak is located halfway between Medford, Oregon and Klamath Falls, Oregon. (Each town is approximately 40 miles away from the trailhead).
When to Visit: Mid-summer to early autumn. Due to its higher elevation, Mt. McLoughlin generally has snow impeding parts of the route until late-June. The best time to visit this popular peak is early autumn after the bugs, the crowds, and the heat have all died down.
Fees/Permits Required: $5 parking fee per vehicle. Envelopes and a metal payment drop box area are located near the wooden map kiosk in the parking area. No parking fee is required for vehicles displaying a Northwest Forest Pass or America the Beautiful (National Park) Pass.
Getting There: Mt. McLoughlin is most easily accessed using the Mt. McLoughlin Trailhead on the peak’s eastern side.
Directions from Medford:
- From I-5 (exit 30), head east on OR-62/Crater Lake Highway for 5 miles.
- Turn right on OR-140 and head east for 32.5 miles. Approximately 4.5 miles after passing Fish Lake Resort (a large private campground), you will reach a sign on OR-140 for the “Summit Trailhead.”
- Turn left at this sign and follow NF-3560 for 2.4 miles to the Mt. McLoughlin Trailhead.
Directions from Klamath Falls:
- From downtown Klamath Falls, head south on US-97 to exit 277 (OR-140). Travel west on OR-140 for 35 miles.
- Just north of Lake of the Woods, you will reach a sign on OR-140 for “Four Mile Lake.” Turn right at this sign onto Four Mile Lake Road/NF-3661 and drive north for 3.1 miles to the four-way intersection with NF-3560 and NF-3633.
- Turn left onto NF-3560 and the Mt. McLoughlin Trailhead parking is 300 yards ahead.
Parking: There is a dirt parking area with room for 10-15 vehicles at the Mt. McLoughlin Trailhead. Parallel parking on the dirt forest road is often used as overflow parking for this popular summertime hike. There is a vault toilet at the trailhead, but no water at the trailhead or along the route once you cross Cascade Canal.
Pets Allowed: Yes.
Kid Friendly: This hike is not suitable for children under the age of 12 due to its overall length, sharp vertical gain, severe weather hazards, and higher-than-normal risk of getting lost or injured during the descent.
Hiking Distance: 8.5 miles (round-trip) from the Mt. McLoughlin Trailhead.
The Summit: Mt. McLoughlin’s summit is covered in rock with a small dirt saddle between its two highest points. On a clear day, visitors can see Mt. Shasta to the south and Upper Klamath Lake to the east. (Note: I did not spot the survey marker on this summit, but other hikers claim there is a marker located at the base of the rock wall (windbreak) where you initially crest the peak)
Trip Summary
Unlike many visitors to this county high point, I didn’t begin my hike at the trailhead. Instead I started/ended at the Summit Snow Park lot immediately off of OR-140. This was a bit of a mistake on my part, and not something I’d recommend to anyone else because it added nearly 6 miles of hiking to my trek.
Why did I unnecessarily turn an 8.5-mile hike into a 14-mile trip? Blame it on the US Forest Service.
Immediately before my trip, I went onto the USFS webpage to check on the trail conditions. When I clicked on the map for this hike, the USFS recommended that hikers take the longer route from the snow park because they’d removed the bridge over the Cascade Canal near the Mt. McLoughlin trailhead.
Seeing this recommendation, I reasoned that the missing bridge may have also resulted in the shorter, original trail not being maintained, so I opted for the USFS’s recommended route. (Spoiler alert: the shorter route was 100% maintained and there were plenty of logs over the creek to compensate for the missing bridge).
Mt. McLoughin sits 200+ miles away from my home, so I decided to break up the drive and head on down to the trailhead the evening before my hike began. I arrived at Summit Snow Park just after sunset and planned to sleep in my RAV4 and get an early start the next morning.
I’d just finished inflating my air mattress when another car arrived and parked on the other side of the parking lot near the vault toilet. I didn’t think much of this visitor until a man came over using his phone’s flashlight function to lead the way and then asked if I could do him a favor. My “weird dude at a trailhead” spidey-sense perked up and I was immediately apprehensive and wondered what his angle might be.
As it turns out, he just wanted to ask me to turn my headlights on. His buddy was paragliding and hadn’t landed before dark, so he was trying to illuminate a safe landing zone for the guy in the large, empty paved parking lot of the Summit Snow Park.
This was about as unusual of a request as I’d ever gotten, but I acquiesced and turned on my SUV’s headlights. And, sure enough, a guy in a parachute whizzed by me in the dark to make a landing a mere 75 yards to my left!! Well, you don’t see that every day!!!
Eager to get hiking and beat the heat, I was up before sunrise the next morning. The temperatures in Southern Oregon were supposed to reach the mid-90s this afternoon, and I wanted to be off the mountain before the heat baked me into a sour mood.
The initial 0.25-mile of the trek was on a connector trail between the parking area and the Pacific Crest Trail. From the PCT, it was time to head another 3 miles north to junction with the Mt. McLoughlin Trail (#3716).
Although Mt. McLoughlin isn’t a technical climb, it most certainly is a steep one with 4,000 feet of vertical gain from the junction with the PCT. What’s more, there would be lots of rocks and loose volcanic silt in my future ensuring some slow hiking during this steep ascent.
From the PCT, the initial section of the Mt. McLoughlin Trail was easy to follow through the forest. And eventually as the trail became rougher around 6,500-feet elevation, a number of white spray-painted markers started to emerge.
Sometimes the marks were obvious arrows. Other times, it was just a white dot on a boulder. Nonetheless, these markers were helpful because there were numerous times when social trails braided over each other or boulders blocked the dominant path from my view.
As the trees became more sparse, I was able to see my surroundings better, including the sapphire water of Four-Mile Lake to my north. The warnings on the USFS sign urged me to keep this lake in my eyesight on the descent, as numerous other hikers seemed to drift south on the descent. So I made a mental not of its location as the route wove it’s way up the east side of Mt. McLoughlin.
Mt. Shasta eventually became visible to my south too, but the mountain was not as beautiful as normal. The smoky skies from a wildfire up near Crater Lake along with lots of dust in the air only provided me with views of the uppermost slopes of this lovely 14,000-foot peak.
Once I reached 8,000 feet elevation, I was pretty much above tree line and out of the forest. The white paint marks continued to show the way to the summit, and now a series of three-foot tall white posts were added to the route at regular intervals.
Much of the time, I was able to follow the route up the slope through the rocks. But other times it was just easier to follow the path of least resistance and engage in a little bolder scrambling.
Around 0.7 miles below the summit, the top of the Mt. McLoughlin finally became visible. And while it looked close, I knew it was still 1,200 vertical feet up. I wouldn’t be there anytime soon.
This was the moment when I was glad to be hiking this peak right after my Colorado Trail thru-hike. Not only did I still have the conditioning from 500 miles hiking at high altitude, but I still had my trail legs. Without both of those things working in my favor, I’m pretty sure I would have been huffing and puffing up this climb instead of just cruising up.
Before I knew it, I was cresting the top of Mt. McLoughlin and looking at a small wall of rocks erected as a wind break. It was covered in some graffiti, so I didn’t bother checking it out (which is how I missed the survey monument that was supposedly there).
Instead, I scrambled up the boulders atop the summit, and then noticed a second rocky summit a little further to my north. The second rock mound looked slightly higher, so I had to head over to explore it just to make sure I was really at the top of Jackson County.
From this vantage point, everything below me was either blue or green. Four-mile Lake sat near the mountain’s north side. Upper Klamath Lake was off in the distance to the east. And to the south, I could see Fish Lake and Lake of the Woods. It was a veritable boon of lakes and forest! And I had it 100% to myself this morning.
After leisurely enjoying a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a Diet Dr. Pepper at the summit, it was time to head back down. I knew in my heart that Mt. McLoughlin wasn’t going to be one of those peaks with an easy return. In fact, it might take me nearly the same amount of time to descend on the rocks and loose sand as it took to get up to the top.
The descent down the first 1,000 vertical feet was where those white posts marking the route came in super handy. The volcano’s slope seemed to draw you to head south. But those posts and the admonition to continuously head toward Four-Mile Lake kept me on track so I didn’t head into the loose rock slope where people get lost of injured every year.
As I returned to tree line, I passed two other solo female hikers on their way up. Both of them said they’d started at the Mt. McLoughlin Trail and were doing the 8.5-mile route. Clearly, they were smarter than me!
Eventually, I returned to the junction where the PCT and the Mt. McLoughlin Trail split. Here I had a choice to make: (1) I could return to my car via the PCT; or (2) I could go check out the other trailhead myself and then follow the Lower Canal Trail (i.e. NF-3650) back to Summit Snow Park. This second option wouldn’t require hiking any farther, so I decided to give it a go to see what I’d missed.
Sure enough, the Mt. McLoughlin trail was in great condition. I could have saved myself 2 hours of time today if I’d just parked at the correct trailhead and omitted those extra miles. And there were no issues with the missing bridge either. The creek was 100% passable via several logs. Was this meager water crossing why the USFS recommended the longer 14-mile route?? How ridiculous.
After checking out the trailhead, all that was left was the 3-mile trek back to the car on an increasingly warm afternoon. The temperatures were well into the 90s now, and the shade seemed to be sparser and sparser. I would have 100% tried to bum a ride if a single car had come driving down the forest road (aka the ‘Lower Canal Trail’) on my return trip, But I wasn’t that lucky. So I had to walk every step back.
Bonus Material
Camping Nearby:
- Fish Lake Campground is located directly south of Mt. McLoughlin on the banks of Fish Lake and offers 20 campsites. This developed USFS campground is open from mid-May to early-October, and it has flush toilets, potable water, picnic tables, fire rings, and a fish cleaning station. Cost: $22-33 per campsite/vehicle, plus $10 for each additional vehicle. Reservations are available for some campsites at recreation.gov., while other sites are occupied on a first-come, first-serve basis (but users must pay using the Scan & Pay feature on the Recreation.gov app.)
- Apsen Point Campground is located on nearby Lake of the Woods and offers 40 reservable campsites. This very popular USFS campground is open May 20 to September 19, and has flush toilets, potable water, picnic tables, fire rings, a boat ramp, and a beach. Cost: $38 per campsite/vehicle, plus $10 for each additional vehicle. Reservations are available at recreation.gov.
- Four-Mile Lake Campground is located on the southern end of Four-Mile Lake and offers 22 reservable campsites. This seasonal USFS campground is only open July 1 to Labor Day weekend, and has picnic tables, fire pits, a vault toilet, water hand pump, equestrian campsites, and a boat ramp. Cost: $25 per campsite/vehicle ($50 for equestrian sites). Reservations available on recreation.gov.
Resources:
- Highpointing Mt. McLoughlin (Summit Post)
- Mt. McLouglin Trail #3716 (USFS)
- Informational Map (USFS)
- Hiking the Mt. McLoughlin Trail (Hike Oregon)