We had 4 hikers come out to hike to Mount Elijah and The Big Tree Loop starting from the Oregon Caves. The hike is only 92 miles from Ashland, but it takes 2 hours to drive with 18 of those miles on the winding Highway 46 that ends at the caves. We started our drive in thick fog and came into the blue sky, then back to fog. We were happy when we arrived at the trailhead that it was back to sunny and blue sky.

We started a short walk on the road since the gate is closed. The first permanent structure built there was the Chalet in 1924 which now serves as the Visitor Center. In 1942 The building was rebuilt, adding a third floor and the iconic archway. Today, the upper two floors of the Chalet function as dormitories for seasonal guides. There are also several rustic cabins built in 1926 an are just up the slope behind the chalet. [1]https://www.nps.gov/orca/learn/historyculture/index.htm

We took a bit to figure out what trail to begin on and headed up the Big Tree Trail. After hiking around 1.3 miles we came to the Big Tree which is the thickest Douglas-fir in Oregon measuring 43' around. It is around 160' tall. We had a little snack and continued up the trail and encountered patches of snow. We then went left and continued up the Mount Elijah Trail. As we hiked along, we could see movement and realized there were 5 does casually walking up the hill. We went on a switchback and were very close to them. You could tell they were used to people because they were happy to stand there for pictures.

We continued on and the snow patches were getting bigger. We noticed a bear paw print and I compared it to my shoe.
Eventually we had continuous snow and at times we did a little bit of postholing. It was hard work going uphill in the snow. We came to an opening and could see all the snow covered mountains and felt that all that work was worth it. We continued along happy because the trail still had a depression where it was under the snow. At one point, we looked downward and to our left and were able to see part of one of the Bigelow Lakes.

After taking several short breathers, we made our way to the summit of Mount Elijah that is named after Elijah Davidson who discovered the caves in 1874. We enjoyed a Hank lunch since there was a cold breeze and we didn't want to get too cold and we had a 2 hour drive to get back to Ashland.

On our way back down, we put on microspikes, ice-trekkers or yaktrax because we knew it could be slippery. We decided to check to see how long we were in continuous snow. We figured it was at least 2 miles and realized why it wasn't easy. When we got back to the Big Tree Trail, we continued around and finished the loop and ended back up at the Visitor Center. We had hiked 9 miles and had 2,334 feet of elevation gain.