Tag Archives: Hiking in the Columbia River Gorge

May6

BCEP – Hiking Hamilton Mountain

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.


Saturday, 08-Apr-2023


Another Saturday, another adventure with BCEP team four!



I freely admit – I miss my lazy weekends, at this point. I’ve been having a blast with Team 4, getting lots of adventure in and getting a ton of great socialization… not to mention getting to see people come into their own and become the confident adventurers that they all can be. But it’s tiring, and having to wake up early so often wears me down a bit.

Ben needs his lazy mornings, dang it!


Thankfully, Hamilton Mountain didn’t start out all too early. I was able to stay in Portland with Jess, which meant a bit shorter of a drive and a bit of nice breakfast in the morning… which definitely helped make up for the early rising, I freely admit.

We got to the trailhead, we conferred with the rest of the team, and we hiked in.

Yup.

It was a hike.

We… uhh… we walked? We chatted?

I fell behind a bit so I could take some photos, and then caught up with the team as they hit the snow line near the summit.

We descended, and headed onward to our next adventure… I mean, it’s hiking, dear reader. You know the drill.


It was an excellent time, I wasn’t at work, and the pictures were great. What more could I ask for?

Nov23

Hiking Cape Horn. In the rain. Hiking stupid cape stupid.

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Sunday, 07-October-2018

I didn’t like Cape Horn. Sarah didn’t like Cape Horn. Ollie loved Cape Horn, but also hated Cape Horn.

It was long, not super pretty, near the highway, it was raining, and Ben and Sarah wouldn’t let Ollie jump off the 100+ft cliff. Jerks. There was a Snickers bar halfway down. Ollie’s confident she could have gotten it.

Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. I think we were just kind of worn down from the week before, and we definitely weren’t super energetic about the whole situation. Also, we ate Burger King for breakfast. Also Starbucks. We ate two fast food breakfasts. Around 10:00. So… Brunch. We made poor life decisions.

Those decisions, regarding food, definitely didn’t help us power through the hike. But power through we did, crushing the miles and switchbacks. We went fairly slowly, to be fair, but we did keep going. That’s the key, right? Showing up and giving it your best, day in and day out?

Ollie… Ollie didn’t go slowly. She zoomed. Nonstop.

The viewpoint came, and the viewpoint went. The views were honestly lovely and amazing, but they weren’t quite enough to redeem the hike for us. They were great, yeah, but we’d lived in Hood River for a year, two for me. I’d somehow gotten almost immune to the views? Or the rainy mist was getting to me, one or the other.

Something that was amazing?

Sandwiches while watching a barge maneuver around the shallows. We’ve been rocking the baguette sandwiches recently – prosciutto, brie, and apple slices on a fresh sea salt and rosemary baguette. No mist or slimy trail could beat that kind of sandwich!

We hiked it. A little over seven miles. Up and down and around. Some good views, some good food, lots of switchbacks. Ehh. I know we’ll appreciate it later in the week, when we’re all strong, but for now… Ehh. We got out of the house and got moving.

And sometimes that’s enough of a victory in itself.

Jan2

A weekend of relaxed adventures… or: Winter is upon us, so trips become smaller

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Saturday, 07-November-15
Saturday: hike Starvation Creek with Dave and Anthony, get pizza afterward, Ollie does well
So Winter in the Columbia River Gorge is a lot different than the Winter that I’m used to from New England.  As of November, it had basically just been a series of gross, rainy, cloudy, and unpleasantly cool / wet days.  We hadn’t had any snow, and it hadn’t gotten cold enough to have that really *crisp* feel of New England early winter.
So, a group of us got together and did some hiking.
Ollie, the dog that Sarah had just adopted earlier in the week, was coming along with us – this was set up to be her introduction to mountain hiking, and we were curious how she’d fare.  Ollie is basically a black lab, with a generous portion of border collie mixed in for good measure… so we weren’t particularly worried about her keeping up.  The worry was how long she’d be able to do so – she was still a puppy, after all.
So we all met up at the trailhead for Starvation Creek – Myself, Sarah, Ollie, our friend Dave, and my coworker Anthony.
The trail itself was, in a word, steep.  By steep, I mean “ohh my lord how am I still walking upward?  How many more up can I hike?”.  But we pressed through, and got some amazing views for our effort.  After a few hours Sarah and Dave headed back with Ollie, since she was starting to lag behind a bit, and Anthony and I continued on for the summit.
Which we totally reached.  We definitely didn’t turn around maybe a mile or two after splitting ways with Dave and Sarah.  I don’t know what you’re talking about.
To celebrate our totally actual and legitimate summit, we all ate some pizza.  It was delicious.