8 miles of hiking • 1000' elevation gain •
We left SE Portland at 6 am and headed down 26 until 35 to get to hood river ( I know long way but we had never been on hwy 35). First we went up to Hood River Mountain and it was very rad, saw my first fairy slipper orchid and chocolate lilly! Once near the top the views were amazing and the hills were covered with paintbrush and balsamroot sadly the lupine was only just starting. Next we went to Rowena and poked around. Lots of poison oak and I even found a tick on me! Nice day and weather overall : )
Comments
Chris
May 29, 2011
Awesome! I have yet to see one of these guys. Was he up the gorge behind the logs, or along the trail higher up?
Monica
May 29, 2011
He was before the log jam, there is a big rock you need to climb down and right at the bottom he was right in the middle of the trail, lucky for him that we were coming off the rock and had to look to see where our feet were going to land or he would have gotten stepped on! I moved him off the trail and within 3 minutes he had found a hiding place in the rocks. I have never seen one before so I was very excited.
Monica
May 28, 2011
We also stopped at Oneonta Gorge and saw a giant pacific salamander!