Bald Butte, Apr 12th

Wildflowers are blooming, or so we thought. With the unseasonably warm weather and very mild winter we had spring has been a bit out of control. We’ve seen reports of flowers in full bloom in several places yet others still have a bit of snow. IN one report we saw that we were pretty close to the full bloom in Dog Mountain, one of the must-go places in the Gorge this time of year as the entire mountain gets covered with yellow flowers. The problem in that trail is that it has gotten so popular that is hard to find a parking spot in the huge parking area the trailhead has. When flowers bloom, everyone plus their aunts go there. Still, Val and I wanted to see some wildflowers but avoid the crowds so we opted for a hike we found a couple of years ago. Bald Butte, located in the Surveyors Ridge on the eastern side of Mt Hood, can get as many flowers as Dog Mountain but not the crowds. Usually flowers bloom there before they do on Dog, or so we thought. Still we made it there for a really nice hike on a partially cloudy day. Since the clouds were covering Mt hood, I was not able to take a lot of pictures of that so I spent most of the time taking pictures of small things. Besides the clouds, we found ourselves hiking on rather cold day. It was a bit weird because the sun felt nice and warm but the air, and the little wind there was, was cold. We even had a section of the trail all dusted white which seemed a bit earie and out of place. So all the yellow flowers are not out yet but it was still a beautiful hike



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