We went up Dog Mountain the as the Oregon side of the Gorge hasn't gotten much sun. It was a very cold day and pretty windy the entire drive. Dog Mountain trailhead was clear and only one other car in the lot when we arrived.
The trail began clear, but quickly became covered in packed down snow on the first switchbacks. I had some yaktrax, but my girlfriend made it up this with no problems. From this point the trail was covered in snow the rest of the way up, but has seen enough traffic to be easy to follow. We went up the easier route to the left as there was more sun on it. After the first overlook the trail was a tiny bit hard to catch up a ridge, but we kept following tracks and made it no problem. As we continued up the trail the forest was blanketed in snow, but the trail stayed easy to follow until right before the meadow. When we hit the last switchbacks and came to where the trail usually emerges onto the meadow, the trail other hikers had made veered off to the left up the hill. We could see a trail all the way up to the summit, but the way was steep up the hill cutting straight up the meadow rather than switchbacking across. Since we had no poles or better footgear, we decided to turn back at this point. We had passed others that made it to the summit with better gear so it was doable. On the way down it was definitely helpful to have spikes on my boots, as my girlfriend fell several times, but was not super hard. Overall it was still a very pleasant, but cold hike. By far the least crowded I've seen Dog Mountain. With the weather changing this week hopefully some of the snow will come off and the trail will be exposed again.
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