This was a fun hike! My 4th Peak of the challenge this year. All the other peaks I have left were too smoky or too rainy… or both! But the rains had already passed through the Mt Hood area, and the trail WASN’T DUSTY!!! It only took me about 2 hours to get near the top, and half an hour or so to explore. The “trail” passes through tumbled rocks and vegetation, so I felt like a lot of it was cross-country. I use Trailforks to record and monitor my hikes, and it shows the trail continuing past the actual summit, so I followed it.  To the top of the chair lift for the ski slope. Where I decided, instead of reversing my hike, I would head down into unfamiliar terrain. It wasn’t all quite as wild, but I saw no one else going down, which was cool. It took me just an hour to descend. At the bottom, I saw that there’s an alpine slide up there! I guess, in theory, I could have slid down, but that would have been cheating, right? ;^). It was so cloudy that even Mt Hood was obscured, I certainly couldn’t see farther away, maybe I will need to go back again when the air is clearer. I live in Bend, so this was 2 hours each way, but it was with it! 2 other thoughts: it looked like the trail itself becomes a stream during rainfall, so I wouldn’t recommend this trail during a storm. Also, the road noise was annoying for the first 2 hours. I wish trucks were quieter! I didn’t notice it at the top, fortunately.