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Johnson Ridge is exactly the hike it sounds like it is, a hike up Johnson Ridge. There are no switchbacks or anything else to soften the blow. If the ridge goes up you hike up, if the ridge dips down then you hike down. If we’re being honest it’s almost all up and it’s a workout. The ridge varies in that sometimes the crown of the ridge is a couple of hundred yards across and sometimes it’s a few feet.
Eventually, after 4 miles of this workout you’ll reach the top, and that would be Scorpion Mountain. It’s not a phenomenal peak with 360 views like many of the other peaks in the Cascades. Really it’s just a mound where if you were to keep going you would effectively start going down the other side of the ridge.
So why hike this trail? Well, there is a little bonus in the form of Joan Lake. Nestled in a small basin a few hundred feet below Scorpion Mountain is Joan Lake, which is a cute little lake that I’ve always thought would be a nice place to spend the night. On this day I didn’t hike down to it but it’s a nice bonus. Other than that Johnson Ridge is just a good workout that is infrequently hiked by the masses so you normally have the hike to yourself, which is worth something.
If the hike itself is nothing special then there are other things to keep it interesting.
On the way up the forest service road leading to the trailhead there was a huge owl that kept flying ahead of me. I kept trying to get a photo of it but every time I got close enough to take a picture the bird would fly another 100 feet and land again and I would have to move forward. I finally did get a picture but the owl was pretty far away so it’s not as impressive as it was in person.
Also on the road, almost at the trailhead, was an abandoned vehicle. That’s unusual but what I couldn’t figure out was how it got in the position. The road was straight in that section and it was almost like someone had to put some effort into driving it off the road, and they had to be going fast enough to get it to land on it’s side and break everything out. It was just an odd thing to see.
Finally, as I was coming down the hill, almost back to the truck, I came around a corner and this Sooty Grouse came flying up at me. I realized quickly that she had a couple of chicks she was protecting. She was not the least bit afraid of me and had no intention of letting me pass. After a few minutes I realized that she had a chick on both sides of the trail so it wasn’t as easy as just waiting for them to move since they had fled in opposite directions. Mama grouse was stuck in the middle protecting on both sides. Every time I would try to pass her she would aggressively come flying at me. We played this game for a good ten minutes before she finally let me go by.
Oh, I also saw some pretty good size bear scat. It was probably a few days old and I saw no other sign of a bear, but it had to be a pretty good size bear roaming around.
