We had 5 hikers come out to hike at Viewpoint Mike. We were happy to be out of the fog and it seemed we were out of the air stagnation. The air was a chilly 31* when we started up the trail.

After a little less than a mile, we stopped at the bench to look at the Rogue River and the Cole Rivers Hatchery. We noticed a couple guys who were fishing and their dog on the beach near McGregor Park.

We continued climbing up the trail and the places that were normally wet were icy and frozen. We needed to stop for a wardrobe adjustment since the trail goes uphill most of the way. After reaching Viewpoint Mike, we took a few pictures and identified Hillman Peak and Union Peak from Crater Lake. There wasn't much wind and Lost Creek Lake was beautiful. The sun was not yet at the viewpoint, so we decided to make our way through the woods and look out on the borrow pit to have our lunch.

We had a conversation about the borrow pit and I realized that no one had actually been down there or to the top. We decided to cut lunch short and head back down. When we got to the viewpoint, we ran into Beverly and Ryk who used to hike with AHG and spoke to them and 2 others.

We made good time back to the car and then drove a little over 2 miles to a pull out on Highway 62. We headed up State Highway Tie-Medco road to the Laurelhurst Connect then continued on a faint road until we reached the plug in the borrow pit. We walked through some manzanita and Bob and I decided to climb up to the top where we had wonderful views. We climbed back down and joined the others then went back to the car.

We were done hiking at 2:30pm and had hiked 5.95 miles on Viewpoint Mike with 1,224 feet of gain, and 1.55 miles on the Borrow Pit with 404 feet of gain.