I try not to throw around phrases like “perfect hike,” but Lookout Mountain, just east of Mount Hood, gets about as close as anything can to that standard. Why? Because it is a mix of effort, payoff, cool forest, sunny meadows, relative solitude, flowers, springs, and a big-time view that includes volcanoes, forests, a lake, the Columbia River, […]
If you’re looking for a pretty easy hike with great views of the Oregon Cascades, Whetstone Mountain is a good place to start. It’s kind of a long drive, but I recommend it if you’re spending a night camping in the area, like along the Clackamas River. The hike is less than five miles roundtrip […]
For many years, one of my favorite Mount Hood hikes has been Vista Ridge — even after much of it burned up in the 2011 Dollar Lake Fire. It’s a great walk along a mountain ridge to a loop that includes several alpine meadows, front-row views of Hood, babbling brooks, smiling wildflowers … and now […]
The August, 2017 issue of my monthly(ish) newsletter, the Breakfast Bulletin, is out. This month, we have: a wrap-up of the many hikes I’ve been on lately, while updating my book 6o Hikes Within 60 Miles of Portland — almost all of them of them in the Columbia River Gorge. An update from the soccer project, about the crazy […]
Every year in early summer, the Portland-area hiking cycle takes one to Saddle Mountain, just off US 26 on the way to the Oregon Coast. It is typically in late June — when the Gorge flower show is done and the higher trails haven’t melted out yet — that the open peaks of this Coast Range […]
Update: As of January 2018, this trail is closed because of the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire. Check the National Forest website for the latest info. There are, of course, many epic hikes in the Columbia River Gorge. They lead to waterfalls, forests, flowers, and viewpoints. But perhaps none takes in all of these as the uber-epic […]
Update: As of January 2018, this trail is closed because of the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire. Check the National Forest website for the latest info. Heading east on Interstate 84 through the Columbia River Gorge, you have no doubt noticed the rest area called Starvation Creek. You may also know that it’s the trailhead for Mount Defiance, […]
Hike to the Roof of the World! From March 14 to April 1, 2018, I will be leading a trek to Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal. The trip is with Portland-based Embark Exploration Co., and we will be taking a slightly less-traveled route known as the Gokyo Lakes. I could not be more excited about this […]
It’s not often we get a new hiking trail in the Columbia River Gorge. But the Mosier Plateau Trail is just that, and a most welcome one as well. Since I moved to Oregon in 1996, I can think of only handful of trails that have come online in the area: Cape Horn is an obvious […]
Usually, I would hike Tom McCall Point in spring, when it’s one of the best wildflower hikes in the Columbia River Gorge. But I missed that this year. Still, there is a new piece of trail up there, and it’s always a nice hike, so I went to check it out at the end of […]