Well, this was one of my worst ideas. Yesterday, J. and I hiked up Dog Mountain in the Gorge. Here’s the gist: 3.6 or so miles to the top, and then back down. A mere 2,950 feet of elevation over that descent. The views were great, true, but they were few and far between. The rest involved a lot of panting, grunting, sweating, and staring up at each new endless switchback, sometimes hallucinating that the top was just around the corner. (It never was). Here is a short video panning the view at one of the midpoint clearings.
And here’s a few photos from the top:
Sure, ponder the beauty, but then ponder how a 7 mile hike took us almost 5 hours total, not including drive time to get to the trailhead. The ascent was hell on my heart, and the descent absolutely killed my knees. After reasoning that we’d probably killed about a trillion calories, we decided on a dinner of New York strip steaks, potatoes, green beans, and, for a dessert, a massive plate of fruit and cheese. Not one but two bottles of wine were administered to soothe our aching joints.
The moral of the story is that I’m glad I can say I did this hike, but I’m sure as hell never doing it again.
