Winter Weekly: First snows and tracks at Pocket Creek

It’s winter on Mt. Hood! The snow is falling, and our volunteers are busily documenting wildlife activity by surveying for wildlife tracks and keeping our motion-activated cameras baited and working.

The first weekly winter update focuses on Pocket Creek, which is a location we’ll be getting to know well this winter: there are two wildlife cameras there, and the first tracking trip of the season surveyed the flats between Newton Creek and the East Fork of the Hood River there this past Sunday.

When our volunteers get out of their cars at the Pocket Creek Sno-Park, right about where Newton Creek crosses Highway 35, they find themselves at about 3,500 feet, and if they face southwest they may get a glimpse of a ridge that rises to about 5,500 ft. The Badger Creek Wilderness is on the other side of that ridge. As they head into the woods, they find themselves among Doug Firs, Silver Firs, Western Hemlocks, and White Pines in the mid-elevation Silver Fir forest zone.

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