Weldon Wagon Road — Thursday, Apr. 25, 2013

Southwest Washington > Columbia River Gorge - WA

This is a delightful 5.4 mile RT hike with a gradual elevation gain of 1290 feet. There is a brush at the TH to brush off weed seeds before you begin your hike. At 0.2 miles you turn right off the jeep road to walk through a forest of pine, oak, and Douglas fir. Here we saw a pair of pileated woodpeckers. At 0.7 miles you begin to walk in a meadow lined by oaks. Great Hound's Tongue was prevalent in the forest floor and continues along the trail beneath the oaks. At 1.8 miles you reach a large sign telling you that you are now entering the White Salmon Oak Natural Resources Area. At 2.2 miles you enter the oak forest and continue to 1900 feet where you now leave the NRCA to continue on to the Sandborn Road and the end of the trail where old farming equipment can be seen. Over 25 varieties of wildflowers were seen with Great Hound's Tongue, buttercups, balsam root, Bigroot cucumber, ball head waterleaf, and lupine being the predominant ones. A few naked broomrape were seen. We saw bear scat just before the sign for the NRCA. No one else was on the trail today.The wildflowers should continue to improve over the next 2 weeks. Poison oak is growing well!