Dog Mountain
Staring at that date for Mount Olympus on the calendar has been a pretty good motivator lately to get outside and start moving. This morning I got up pretty early for something I haven’t done in a long long time – a good old-fashioned dawn patrol ascent. The target was the Columbia Gorge’s Dog Mountain, down near the town of Stevenson, before you get to Hood River. A quick 45-minute drive and I was the second car at the trailhead – always a good sign. Didn’t bring much this trip, only 10-15 pounds at the most as I had to be back home to help a neighbor pour concrete at 11. At 6:30 I was heading up the very very steep trail and feeling it pretty quickly. It took a little longer than usuall for me to get my second wind, but once that kicked in I was fine for the rest of the trip.
The trail was in really nice shape, but things became much more interesting once I broke through the trees and hit the high meadows below the summit. Lots of flowers out – I’d missed the full-on bloom of early spring, but what was out was still beautiful. Lots and lots of balsamroot in varying stages of blossom and decay, as well as various red and purple wildflowers I’ll have to try to identify some time. There was a nice view out towards the west, and the tip of Mount Hood was visible just to the south. Adams was also out, but you had to peek through the trees on the north side of the summit.
I took a few shots up top, and then turned on the iPod and headed back down the Augsburger Mountain trail, supposedly a bit longer but less severe way to make the loop back to the cars. I ran it pretty quickly, passing only a few people on the way down, but grinning the whole way down.
