Dog Mountain, Augspurger Trail — Monday, May. 17, 2021

This report includes a photo album and link to Columbia Gorge wildflower guide. We went up Dog Mountain via the difficult trail (as opposed to the more-difficult trail). It was a very windy day and glad to have an extra layer as well as a wind jacket. Otherwise would not have been able to pause at the top. Went downhill via the less steep Augspurger Trail. Unlike the Dog Mountain trail, the forest here is moist and in some places muddy. On both trails, there’s a serious amount of poison oak on both sides of the trail. It doesn’t disappear until you’re above treeline. Despite staying away from edges of the trail (to avoid the poison oak), I arrived back at the parking lot with a couple ticks on my nape of my neck. Oddly, there were no ticks on my dog (maybe the flea/tick stuff worked). It doesn’t seem to be posted anywhere, but there’s a vault toilet uphill 100 yards from the parking lot.  On this Monday, the parking lot was full by 8am.

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVNhaSU
• http://science.halleyhosting.com/nature/gorge/index.htm