The Tilly Jane trail goes from the Cooper Spur Ski Area parking lot to the Saddle Camp, on Mt. Hood's north side. It can be a casual 3 hour walk or ski up or an arduous hump with a full pack and new snow to push. I can still remember my first trip up that trail when I was about 13 years old. Army surplus skins on wood skis was the transport but it was a beautiful day with light snow and diamonds shining on the top.
Lately, I've been transcribing some Crag Rat oral history. The late Crag Rat, Wilson Appelgren, was interviewed in 2001, and said that in the early 1930’s, Percy Bucklin and Harold Wells blazed (cutting axe bites into trees) the Tilly Jane trail. “They figured out where the trail should go and they blazed it on the way down from Cloud Cap. The CCC came in later and cut it out." The trail has change drastically, in appearance but not slope, since the Gnarl Ridge fire of 2008.
For an excellent story about the Sept. 2008 fire check Katy Muldoon’s Oregon Live entry here: http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2008/11/fire_on_the_mountain_history_i.html
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