Flowers, Mist, and Some Sun too below Cook Mt.
Flowers, Mist, and Some Sun too below Cook Mt.
A dozen or more years ago I joined a Mazamas hike up Cook and all I recall was climbing straight up through thick brushy growth, gravel roads, and transmission towers. I must have been in a sour mood.
Goal this day was the OH Cook Mtn. loop. One plus about low expectations is how the little things can make you high. Perhaps it was the passing of time and the landscape becoming a little wilder or maybe it's just me - a little older.
So I had a good time taking in a decent array of wildflowers. Many others not pictured including some tiger lilies. I bore right at the the Cook Hill Saddle/Summit junction. The short traverse, with a sun dappled green carpet understory below vine maples was truly storybook - much more than the pic asserts. Coming into the lower meadow I was surprised to be a high as I was. The balsamroot and other spring flowers were past prime. To the south Defiance was shrouded in thick misty clouds. Of course, the weather would be different on Cook.
I continued up into more green carpeted forest. Stunning. It was then I concluded my previous Cook Hill excursion did not feature this lovely routing.
Things got wetter as I got higher. I emerged at either the "small meadow" or the actual summit meadow - not sure which. I had also emerged into a thick mist, gusty winds and driving horizontal rain. Just like that. I layered up under a tree. Wasn't that cold but I wasn't really geared for this kind of action. No views to be had, and recalling fairly open roads on the top I reluctantly retreated back down to the lower meadow for an early lunch.
That was okay. I felt I was on the divide of sun and mist, dryness and dampness, life and such.
Re: Flowers, Mist, and Some Sun too below Cook Mt.
beautiful TR, and reminds us sometime we have to let the hike come to us, taking whatever it offers.