Dog Mountain
March 27, 2007
My good friends from church, Josh, David Jackson, Big Sammie and I decided to do this hike on Dog Mountain in honor of Josh and his then fiancĂ©, Eris, getting married just a few days later. I was a little hesitant because the weather was really rainy and I usually don’t intentionally plan a hike in the rain, but like I said, Josh was just about to get married and he was up for it, so we did it.
We started out pretty late, probably around 2:30pm or later from the trailhead. I hadn’t done a serious hike in a really long time, and I felt it. It was a pretty steep trail. Sam said the elevation gain if we made it to the top was 2,500 feet or so. Most of the hike was well forested which sheltered us from the high winds and rain to a certain extent so we just got a kind of consistent drizzle for the majority of the hike. Along the trail there were two or three viewpoints at clearings that had different levels of visibility in the rain and fog. Most of my photos are from the first one we came to, which probably had the best view of the day. In the end we made it just past a large meadow that surrounded a long straight and steep exposed section of the trail, to a viewpoint that we guessed was perhaps 500 feet in elevation or so from the top. This exposed section was so windy–I would guess maybe 40 or 50 miles per hour, but I could be wrong–and some of us (me, particularly) were so tired, we decided to head back from there rather than continuing to the top. We decided we would do the hike again once the weather was more Spring-like and the flowers in the meadow were blooming and then we would go all the way and enjoy the surely spectacular view. All in all it was a good experience, and from now on I won’t be so hesitant to hike in the rain.