Tired of the bad weather and non-stop rain, Val and I took a chance and went out to the Washington side of the Gorge to re-do a hike that was barely in our minds even though it’s one where we both worked on building part of the trail some years ago while volunteering with WTA. As soon as we got to the parking lot, the memories started to flow back in... “my tent was there” and “so and so were sleeping over there”. This day, with a heavy grey cloud cover, we found the parking lot complete clear with the exception of a single car. It looked like it was going to let loose at any time so we grabbed our gear and started our hike on the equestrian trail going towards the East ridge trail. From there, we started climbing steadily thru the dense forest with no views and the menacing skies above us. That changed a bit when we got to the junction with the Phlox Point trail. At that point, we had a complete view of the Gorge, the heavy cover above us and some lingering clouds in the valleys. It didn’t look like it was raining anywhere so we continued up towards the view point at the end of the ridge. In the distance we could see Mt Hood under the clouds and the sun trying to make its way thru. WE stopped for lunch at a spot just below the end of the ridge where we got a bit of better coverage from the wind. After that we started our hike back to close the loop on the Hardy Ridge trail but before that, we noticed the small clouds on the valley starting to climb up the side of the mountain. As they did, they grew bigger but for some reason, the never passed the ridge. WE were, for a short period of time walking right next to the clouds as if it were an ocean beach with the waves breaking on our side. It was quite the spectacle. As the trail made a turn to start descending we saw that the valley was not complete under the cover of a low hanging cloud. Each step we took, brought as closer in to the cloud until we were inside it so the rest of the hike was pretty much thru a foggy forest. IN the end it never rained on us and we got a good hike in, nothing to complain about.
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