Dog Mountain — Saturday, May. 31, 2014

Southwest Washington > Columbia River Gorge - WA

Amazing hike! I highly recommend it, especially with how many wildflowers are blooming. I drove down to meet a group at Dog Mountain to hike yesterday, and I'm glad I got there when I did. The parking lot was filling up fast! I got there at 9:45 and after meeting everyone else, we began our hike at about 10:30. We went counter-clockwise around the loop so that we'd have the easier grade on the way down, which was nice. The trail climbs up through the trees and levels out for maybe one five-second interval. It's pretty steep, but the views at the top are totally worth it. We hit the lower viewpoint at about 11, then the Puppy Dog viewpoint at noon, then reached the summit shortly after. Once we got out of the forested area, the wind picked up, which felt great as we climbed up. At the top, we were able to see Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens. There were lots of people sitting and enjoying lunches - it was beautiful out! After our lunch, we began the trip back down, continuing our counter clockwise route. We passed the turnoff towards Augspurger Mountain, which looks like fun. The views on that side of the route aren't quite as exciting as on the other side, but there were still great photo ops of the river, flowers, and trees. It was very peaceful. We finished our hike at about 4:15. Many hikers had dogs with them, which was awesome. Quite a few dogs were let off leash, but they were all very friendly, so that was fine. Our way down the mountain also had a growing number of bugs, but as long as we kept moving, it wasn't so noticeable. I can't wait to do more hikes like this! It was amazing :)