Dog Mountain — Sunday, May. 29, 2011

Southwest Washington > Columbia River Gorge - WA

I would love to see this hike on a clear sunny day. The weather forecast had called for some sun at least, but I never saw it. Arriving late the trail was very populated. Poison oak lines the trail at lower elevations. Wildflowers were blooming and that was the highlight of this hike on a cloudy day. The clouds were condensing on the trees, so while it wasn't actually raining, the trees were. This made most of the areas under the trees slick mud. I took Dog Mountain up and the Auspurger Trail down and both had areas of extreme mud. Not only deep in places, but just very slippery especially in the steep places. The summit itself was shrouded in cold clouds and the wind was extremely strong. From the look of the trees, that is normal. It was quite a nice challenging hike, physically. If it had just been the climb and the distance I would have enjoyed it much more, but the (unsuccessful)effort of staying upright in the mud made it a bit much. I was wearing my barefoot shoes, which don't have a lot of traction, but I saw others in hiking boots that were also having difficulties.