Cook Hill is Dog Mountain's taller, stockier, and frumpier sister to the east. Some people say, "why fight the crowds on Dog Mountain when you can have solitude on a beautiful mountain just a couple miles away?" Well, there's a reason for those crowds and that solitude: Cook Hill is pretty boring compared to Dog Mountain, as I discovered yesterday. I wouldn't have done it at all, except I just did Dog last week, and I wanted to try something new.
The trail starts along and above Jackson Road in an ookow-filled meadow:
Then I was in the woods for a few miles, where I found LOTS of everyone's favorite native plant:
(Fortunately, the poison-oak dropped off dramatically after crossing a stream at about 1100'.)
Between 800 and 1200 feet, there were tons of phantom orchids, just starting to bud:
...and spotted coralroot in full bloom, at almost every elevation:
I had no trouble spotting the trail that leaves the old logging road at 1700' and heads east toward the first meadow. The meadow had some nice balsamroot, mostly on the west side where I entered it:
The trail disappeared in the meadow itself, but it was easy enough to find the re-entry point into the woods at the top of the meadow. From there it was up up up. Along the way, I inadvertently disturbed one of the local residents:
It was the first time I've ever seen a LIVING mole. (Every other time I've found one, they were lying dead alongside a trail.) It turns out they squeak when they're annoyed.
At about 2700', I emerged into the bottom of the summit meadow:
I wandered uphill, mostly without a trail, but I knew I just needed to stay near the top of the ridge. The
true summit is a bit like Dog Mountain's: hidden in some woods and viewless. But the meadows surrounding the summit had a fair amount of balsamroot, and nice views to the south and west:
... and some other flowers too, including showy phlox (
Phlox speciosa):
After the meadow, the trail follows a ridge crest with occasional views of Mt. Adams:
Then I walked through some more woods, passed some fenced radio towers, and finally came to the turnaround point, which is a huge powerline cut in a saddle between Cook Hill and Augspurger Mountain:
(Side note: the "
MBPAUG" weather station is on the north side of the cut.)
Shortly after re-entering the woods, I noticed a lot of lumpy-textured heart-shaped leaves along the trail and remembered that this must be wild ginger (
Asarum caudatum), which I'd never seen before. I poked around under the mini-canopy of leaves, and voilà!
So that was kinda cool. But then it was back to four miles of old logging road, broken up only by a big talus slope at about 1900':
...which meant there were a few non-woodland wildflowers, like paintbrush and stonecrop, and this penstemon:
At about 600', I found a leaky water pipe. It was surrounded by poison-oak, but I wanted to get a closer look:
I assume the pipe runs down to the little community of "Cook" from the little stream that crosses the trail. I wonder if anyone knows (or cares) that it needs some help?
I was a little worried about navigation on this hike, but it turned out the trail was very easy to follow, except where it went into meadows. Even then, though, finding the exit point was no trouble. The biggest hazards are poison-oak and boredom; wear long pants, and bring a friend or at least an iPod! Or, better yet — if it's a weekday — just go to Dog Mountain instead.
. I actually have grown to love the Cook Hill loop.
