Dog Mountain is located on the Washington State side of Columbia Gorge. It is an extremely popular place for hikers in the Northwest and is always extremely crowded during the weekend. Dog Mountain trail head is about an hour of drive towards East of Portland. When we drove to there, we took the route of taking I84 East and then cross Columbia River by taking Bridge of Gods. This route is faster than taking I14, however, Bridge of Gods is a toll route and costs $2. This route is faster by 10 minutes.
On this beautiful sunny weekend, we decided to go for a hike at Dog Mountain. When we got there, the parking lot at the trail head is already full! We had to drive down the road for another mile to park the car. One thing about not parking at the trail head is that you do not need to pay the fee. The fee is only for people parking the car at the trail head.
The Dog Mountain trail is a loop. We started the hike on the East side of the trail. The trail started to climb steeply. If you feel you cannot make it for the first 30 minutes of the trail, you may not be able to finish this trail.
Along the trail, we saw many people taking rest at each switch back turns and sometimes the trail gets so crowded and slow you down. Be polite however, since everyone hike at different pace. After coming out of the forest, we came out onto the ridge and overlooking the Columbia Gorge. The view was simply amazing. There were tons of wild flowers blooming on the hillside of the mountain.
When we got to Puppy Head view point, it starts to get very very windy. People start to put on their jacket and we did too. At one point, it was getting very foggy and rained a little. Puppy Head view point is not the summit yet, but very people chose to stop here because the summit seems to be very foggy and very windy. We went on to the summit of course. The trail from Puppy Head view point to the summit was simply amazing. We were walking on the trail with lot of beautiful wild flowers on the side. We were also seeing clouds being blown away by the wind very fast.
After 2 hours of hike, we finally reached the top. Many people rest here and enjoy their lunch and the amazing view of Columbia Gorge.
When we head back down, we took the other trail to complete the loop. The other trail was quite muddy and slipper. We had to be very careful but our shoes were completely covered in mud!
Overall, Dog Mountain is just so amazing that I would do it again. We highly recommend to get to Dog Mountain as early as you can to get parking spot. Also, make sure you wear layers as mountain weather is unpredictable. Bring enough water to keep yourself hydrated as well!