The flowers started immediately, as we headed up the eastern most trail out of Catherine Creek below the old arch. Big-Headed Clover (thanks to Keri-Tracy Sprenger on the Oregon Wildflowers Facebook group!):
Not sure about this one, though:
Old homestead (ranch?) remains:
Some, uh, purple stuff. Lupine?
Up on Tracy Hill there were these gorgeous flowers that almost looked like mini-beargrasses.
And these weird-looking guys, a little further up (mostly in the shade). Man, I really need to spend more time with a wildflower book
Ballhead Waterleaf (thanks again, Keri-Tracy!)
And then these tangled messes of vines and white flowers. Gorgeous!
From the trail's high point on Tracy Hill, we followed a path west down toward the Catherine Creek drainage, then took a hard right, and contoured north on some braiding deer trails into the upper canyon. Note that the side-hilling here is pretty steep, and requires a little scrambling.
After following game trails maybe a half mile up the canyon, we found a good way down to the creek, crossed, and bushwhacked maybe fifty feet up the western side to an old, slightly overgrown road grade running parallel to the creek.
Lupine and trillium en route:
Along the old road, there were several spots of burned wood that didn't exactly look like camp fires. Was this once used as a fire line or something?
Anyway, here's the view of some balsamroot across the canyon, on the side of Tracy Hill:
Where our track hit the more-traveled Atwood Road, there was a bunch of old homey ruins. I guess there was once a homestead here, too?
Shall I cook us some lunch?
There were also a bunch of these gorgeous circular growths around the trees.
And log decorations:
Once we hit the old Atwood Road, it was pretty much smooth sailing to Coyote Wall. I was surprised at how few people we saw - maybe a dozen total, even though the Coyote Wall parking lot was overflowing when we drove by a few hours earlier. More flowers that I can't name:
Currant:
TFF:
The best balsamroot displays we saw all day were along the upper stretches of Coyote Wall. I couldn't quite do it justice.
We stopped most of the way up the wall for a late lunch and some views. As before, there were very few people around. Nice to have a place like this to ourselves.
On the way back, we went down to the lower trail system, and picked our way east. Here's that awesome mesa (I think that's the right word?) near the Labyrinth.
Another:
Some of my favorite views of the day were from the trail that runs just above Rowland Lake.
More lupine!
Just before our trail ran into the road, a quarter mile west of the main parking lot, there was another old homestead or something with a bunch of old rusted stuff. Fun to look around:
We'd been vaguely thinking of hitting Dalles Mountain Ranch, but the day got away from us, so we'll have to safe that for another time. After a carside tick check (none!), we crossed back into Hood River and had a nice dinner and a few beers at Double Mountain.
