Dog Mountain

Dog Mountain - May 24th, 2014
Columbia River Gorge
Mileage: 6 round trip
Elevation Gain: 2800 feet
Dogs Allowed

Earlier in the year, Allison and I sat down and made a comprehensive hiking plan for the summer 2014 season. This was a particularly important and more formal planning session compared with those from seasons past because we both had our fingers crossed that Allison would get into graduate school and we would be moving out of state for for the fall 2014 semester. With that in mind, we wanted to make sure we got in as much Pacific Northwest hiking as possible in during the summer months. What this ended up meaning was that we were booked a hike for 2 weekends a month for almost the entire spring and summer 2014 seasons... including Memorial Day weekend. Normally I would do my best to avoid popular hikes or popular anything on Memorial Day weekend and instead choose to hide from the crowds. Alas, the grand hiking schedule we had created did not allow for this and instead told me that we were scheduled to hike one of the most popular hikes in the state, Dog Mountain.

This was another hike that Allison and I ran for our hiking group, Allison Pushes People Up Mountains. We had a really solid turnout of 8 people. We left Seattle early in the morning and arrived at Dog Mountain early in the afternoon. As we approached the parking lot my fear of a Dog Mountain being overrun with pretty much the entire population of the state joining me for the hike was quickly realized. The entire, quite large, parking lot was completely full with cars actually waiting for spaces to open up, and on top of that there were probably 50 cars lining the side of the highway in either direction. Luckily I had mentally prepared myself for this scenario and had decided that I would enjoy my hike regardless of the number of people, think Zen.

We actually had quite an easy time finding a parking spot despite how dismal the initial prospects seemed. Everyone got geared up and we started up the mountain. You know that special time at the end of a movie when everyone leaves the movie theater at the same time and you have to try to manage your spacing just right not to collide with the person in front or behind you? Of course you do! While, parts of both the ascent and descent of Dog Mountain where much like this. Some trails are made for two way traffic and other trails put you in a situation where you have to step off the path to let other groups pass. Unfortunately Dog Mountain, despite its popularity, really wasn’t built to comfortably accommodate high traffic in both directions which lead to touching strangers, moving off the trail frequently and trying to pass people without killing yourself or them on the steeper parts of the hike.

Jaime at the first overlook

I know based on the above paragraph that you are probably thinking that any Zen I might have had at the start of the hike might have been lost by now, but luckily that wasn’t the case. The ascent was quite rigorous and the endorphins put me in a really good place to handle the crowd.

The majority of the first section of the hike is pretty heavily wooded, so we weren’t able to see much of the territorial view, other than small glimpses of the columbia river for time to time. This was kind of cool because it allowed us to be completely unprepared for the absolutely stunning view we got as we broke through the trees to the first major lookout a little more than halfway through the hike. I’ll let the picture do most of the talking about the view, but needless to say, we were blown away. The view was so good that I convinced myself for a short time that we were at the top. This, however, was not the case.

After taking a fairly long break at the first lookout, we geared up and began the second leg of the ascent. Most of this part of the hike took us through an enormous steep field which was covered in beautiful yellow flowers. Think Van Gogh meets Sound of Music pretty.  My aunt, Cherese, who is also an avid hiker, had taken pictures of these flowers just the week before. She shared those pictures with me, and I was really pleased that they were still in full bloom for me to see in person. After managing to not tumble to our deaths down this beautiful scene while passing other groups on the narrow path, we finally arrived at the top. The view was similar to the one we had at the first lookout, but the addition of another 1000 ft. of elevation meant we were able to see geographic features much farther away including Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. Both of those peaks are completely snow capped year around and their stark white contrasted beautifully with the dark greens, greys and purples of the surrounding mountains. 

We took a long break and consumed some awesome deer jerky that Allison and I made with some meat Nick had given us. After our much needed break, we started the descent back to the car. Overall the descent went pretty well for everyone in the group except Jaxxon. There were two primary reasons for this. Reason 1: Jaxxon really wanted the man who was using a walking stick that looked like Gandalf’s wizard staff to throw said stick so he could play fetch, and Jaxx wanted to tell and show everyone he could how much he desired this outcome. We were hiking a little faster than Gandalf but every time we would take a break he would pass us and then we would start and pass him again. Everytime this happened, Jaxx when apeshit until we finally just decided to speed up and stop the process from repeating another time. Jaxx also hates trains and wants to tell everyone how much he hates trains. Lucky for us, just as we were in site of a car here comes the train causing Jaxx to go crazy and try to choke himself to death and everyone in the parking lot to stare in disapproval. Talk about a great way to end a hike.

In closing, you should definitely check out Dog Mountain if you have a chance. Seeing the view at the top left me with not question as to why this is one of the top hikes in the state. Just don’t be dumb and go on Memorial Day weekend (in fact maybe try and avoid weekends period) and you’ll be fine!