Four Part Harmony

Well, we had another couple days of beautiful spring weather this weekend. Saturday morning we got up early and drove out the Columbia Gorge to hike up Dog Mountain. We had a great day, and got quite a few good photos, so I’m going to put a bunch of them up here (apologies in advance to those of you that don’t live in the Pacific Northwest).

We met up with our friends and neighbors Dawn, Doyle, and Kadin. Here’s a picture of Nicki and Dawn hiking. I should mention that we chose the hike in part because it’s on the Washington side of the gorge on a nice south facing slope, so we knew it would be getting great sun. The part we sort of forgot about, was that it’s called Dog Mountain, and it’s a fairly strenuous climb up that big south slope. Nicki did a great job of just taking a pace that worked for her, and stopping to rest when she needed to. I started to get worried that we had taken on too much for a 31 week pregnant woman, but everything worked out fine.

Here’s Doyle and Kadin. We had the kids in the packs, and they were both happy hikers pretty much the whole way up.

We were a little early for the big wildflower display that will probably kick in in a few weeks, but we did see a few species that were starting to bloom along the trail. Here are some saxifrage of some sort blooming on the hillside.

Here’s a chocolate lily in bloom. There were just a few of these actually blooming, but we saw quite a few more coming up. This has always been one of my and Nicki’s favorite flowers, and it’s always nice to catch it in bloom. We also saw a couple small fairy slippers (Calypso bulbosa), which is a beautiful small pink orchid that’s a sure sign of spring. Another of our favorites.

Here’s a buttercup of some sort ( I think). There were also some little yellow lilies blooming, and I was taking pictures without paying enough attention to actually identifying them.

Here’s part of the view from where we stopped and had our little picnic. At this point, we’re probably only 2/3 or 3/4 of the way to the top, but we had broken out of the tree line, and found a great little sheltered place for a picnic, and we decided that it was a perfect place to stop.

Here’s Nicki and Anna enjoying our little picnic lunch of PB&J, apple, and fruit bar.

Anna giving Kadin a big hug.

Family Portrait.

After the hike back down, and a brief stop in Stevenson for a quick bite to eat and some refreshment, we headed back towards Portland. Anna was getting tired, but we decided to stop in at the Bonneville Dam to try and see some of the salmon coming through the fish ladder. The Spring Chinook are running right now. They have a window into the fish ladder at the dam, where they take the fish counts, and it’s open to the public. I guess maybe it’s still a little early in the run, and it might not have been a great time of day, but there weren’t too many fish to see. We did see a couple pretty good size Chinook though. They said the numbers were looking pretty low so far though.

They also have a fish hatchery there at the dam, where they raise salmon and trout. They also have a sturgeon pond with a couple really big old sturgeon. Sunday we spent some more time outside. I mowed the lawn, we weeded the garden and thinned the seedlings, and had a picnic lunch in the backyard. We also got together with friends in the evening for a birthday party/dinner for Kayla’s 4th birthday.

Among other excitement for the weekend, I also managed to finish (mostly) my guitar project. I put on the strings, and took some pictures while the sun was shining on Sunday, but I’ll have to put them into another post, maybe later this evening.