Vista Ridge Trail, July 26, 2023
This is on the northwest side of Mt Hood. The hike is uphill, about 1440 feet, in 3 miles. The trail starts in forest for a little less than a mile, then you hike through the Dollar Lake fire zone, which burned in September of 2011. Many of the trees are still standing, though grey, charred, and dead. But new growth is taking hold and the area is filled now with Pearly Everlasting and Fireweed along with huckleberries and some lupine, white-flowered azaleas, and some other wildflowers. After 2 1/2 miles you get into the sub-alpine zone and the trees are back and flourishing. The skies were very clear and we had a view of Mt St Helens, Mt Adams and Mt Rainier. We continued up the Barrett Spur trail for a few hundred yards, to a little swale filled with red and white heater, paintbrush, Sitka Valerian, partridge foot and some avalanche lilies. You can no longer see the top of Mt Hood from here but the other mountains and flowers made the hike up worth it.
Fireweed
Pearly Everlasting
Beargrass with burned trees and Mt Hood
Lewis’s Monkeyflower
Red Heather
Pasqueflower
Pasqueflower seed head
Partridgefoot
