Hamilton Mountain 7/7/08

[Spoonie_B]

My fiance and I had a terrific day on Hamilton Mountain yesterday. The California haze seems to be clearing a bit, so we would up with views of Adams and Hood that were better than we expected to get. And as reported last week, the butterflies, wildflowers, and berries are all over the place.

Hardy Falls are as difficult to photograph well as ever.


Hiking this trail is fun!






There were great views in all directions, from Beacon Rock beneath us...


...to Elowah Falls across the Columbia...


...to Hamilton Mountain itself...


...to Hardy Ridge to the west...


...to Table Mountain and Mt. Adams to the east...






...and Wind and Dog Mountains beyond that...


...and Mt. Hood to the south.




But the real treat of the day was the abundance of wildflowers, berries, and butterflies. Hamilton may not produce a show like Dog, but the variety of flowers was unending. Here are a few from our hike...

Honeysuckle (thanks, Tom!)


This looks like an Arnica that is supposedly only seen in the Siskyous, so not quite sure what it is...


Farewell-to-Spring


Columbine






This one looks like an Oxeye Daisy, which again, supposedly doesn't grow in the Gorge. But it doesn't look like any other daisy that does, from the pictures I've seen...


Not sure what this little puffball is...possibly bachelor's button?


And again...this looks like thimbleberry, but the leaves are the wrong shape. Wild rose?


Columbia Lilly




And then, there were butterflies. I don't know what either of these are, but who cares, because the second two are having sex.


These guys were not fazed in the slightest by my camera lens hovering inches above them. I hope somebody at least bought somebody a nice dinner.


And, there were the berries. We ate many delicious salmonberries and a few even more delicious raspberries, but the wild strawberries were definitely the tastiest of all.


We took the Hardy Creek trail back down to complete a loop.


After we returned to the car, we decided to take a quick jaunt up Beacon Rock to see what we could see. Munra Point, as it turned out, as well as a nice view east down the Columbia with much better afternoon light than the harsh overhead stuff I was trying to shoot in during mid-day.


Beacon Rock casts a long shadow beneath us.


All in all, a great day in the Gorge!

[fettster]

What a nice collection of flower pics, though that last picture with the shadow is my favorite! It's a lot of fun being up on those higher Gorge points ID'ing various landmarks. Good stuff.

[AlexanderSupertramp]

Awesome post Spoonie . Looks like you guys had a nice clear day for it. Plus the added bonus of butterfly copulation.

[catwalker]

I was up Hamilton mountain on Saurday. Very overcast, couldn't see anything much from the top. Loved the hike but it looks like I will have to repeat it if I want to see the views. There was an advantage to the cloud, we virtually had the trail to ourselves until we got back to the very bottom part of it.

[Don Nelsen]

Great report and great photos! Monday turned out to be a surprisingly good day and I was up on Table Mountain while you were doing Hamilton. I waved, but I couldn't tell if you waved back.

Don

[Splintercat]

Great report, Spoonie! That first flower is honeysuckle, and the middle one looks like wild rose... though normally, they are pink. I'm going by the leaves in the photo.

Nice photos!

Tom