Memaloose Hills, March 29, 2023
It was a lovely day this almost end of March Wednesday. Drove up the Gorge to Mosier and then up Old Highway 30 to the Memaloose Hills overlook, where the trail starts, going into the hills away from the river. The trail is not a difficult trail and usually I follow the trail up what is called Chatfield Hill and follow the trail as it steeply descends again, but today I took the steep trail up the hill. Some would call this the back way up. And then followed the trail down till it met with the trail for Marsh Hill, and followed this the back way up also. It was a reverse trail day for me. These hill used to just be called the Memaloose Hills, but this year, someone nailed up signs labelling the hills, one Chatfield Hill and the other Marsh Hill. While it is still early in spring, there were numerous flowers out today. There were three that I did not get pictures of: Salt and Pepper, Prairie Star and Western Saxifrage. Otherwise, all the flowers that were blooming today are shown below, including a couple of very young arrowleaf balsamroot flowers.
Pointing the “back” way up this hill.
Oaks Toothwort
Columbia Desert Parsley
Small Flowered Blue Eyed Mary
Yellow Fritillary
Western Buttercup
Bonneville Shooting Star
Arrow pointing the way
Glacier Lilies
Arrowleaf Balsamroot
Marsh Hill sign
