wildflowers at their peak!!! Our party of two + our doggo did the Vista Loop clockwise today. We decided to do this clockwise because we wanted to see Mt Hood and the Gorge on our way down but alas the clouds rolled in by then so we missed the epic in-your-face mountain shot but would still recommend going in this direction.
We arrived to the parking lot at 8:15am (this is a Sunday) and all the car spaces were already full. We took our sweet time relishing in all the wildflowers - so many picturesque opportunities!! We would stop to take a photo, hike another 0.10 mile and stop for another 10 minute balsamroot photoshoot. And we repeated this about 900 times. Then, we finally returned to our car at 12:30pm and there were many more cars- these new arrivals had to park along the gravel of the little roundabout by the designated horse trailer parking spots. At the end we logged about 6.5 miles on our Garmins
We read a lot of reports about ticks and thankfully we did not find any ticks on ourselves, or clothes/gear or our pup. Also, no snake encounters either!! Definitely recommend wearing long pants and covering up to avoid tick issues though. And do not let your dogs frolic in the brush- don’t let them merge onto the tick highway!! also- there were a few areas we saw where hikers were clearly going off trail for the photo ops- please do not do this! Stay on the trail to protect our flora and also this will protect you from ticks and snakes!!!
last thing: it is WINDY. Don’t let the sun fool you. This wind is strong and cold. Do not forget your windbreaker/outer shell
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