Hiking Dog Mountain

Bob, Ryan, Emily, Carolyn and I went to Dog Mountain for some hiking. The Dog Mountain trailhead is right off of Highway 14 on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge. I have read that in the late spring and summer the trail sees heavy use. It is located close to Portland and Vancouver.

I figured hiking this early in the spring we would probably run into some snow on the mountain. We sure did! Quite a bit more than any of us were expecting. We came prepared though. It was very windy for the last mile of the trail. There wasn't much tree cover.

I took my GPS to track our trail. You can view it in Google Earth or on Google maps. The GPS lost signal a few times so there were breaks in the data. I just connected up the end points so it isn't very accurate in some places.

Definitely stick to the right hand trail when going up the mountain. The views are much nicer. We didn't get to enjoy them that much because of the cloud cover though.

Summit: 2,956 feet
Elevation Gain: 2,806 feet

6 miles round trip



After the hike I posted my first "Trip Report" on http://www.wta.org/. I found this website to be a great resource for trail information, so I thought I'd try to contribute a little.

Mt St Helens - Monitor Ridge Route

This weekend Carolyn and I along with Doug, Naomi and Bob met up with a group of friends from Seattle to climb Mt. St. Helens.

We started at 7:25 am on September 9th. We reached the crater rim around 12:15pm.

The view was amazing. We spent about an hour at the top taking in the view, shooting photos and eating lunch.

The climb back down was very hard on the feet and ankles. We reached Climber's Bivouac at 5pm.

It was a challenging hike, but the view was worth it. It was so neat to see the new cone building up inside the crater and steam coming out.

In general, the Monitor Ridge route to the top of Mt. St. Helens consisted of 2 miles of well kept trail through trees, 2 miles of climbing up a boulder field, and 1 mile of steep gravelly ash to the top.

Here is some more detailed information from the GPS.

Climber's Bivouac: 3,737 feet
Tree Line: 4,836 feet
Crater Rim: 8,281 feet

Elevation Gain: 4,544 feet

9.5 miles round trip
9 1/2 hours round trip

See our path in Google Earth