We had the most amazing weather! No snow! That was the requirement I gave Sarbar. Instead I got views, sun and wildflowers. We took the oldest of the 3 trails to the summit. The trail is lined all along the first mile or two of trail (the first 1000-1500ft of elevation)! YIKES.

It was at least 80* and clear blue skies. We reached the junction with the 2nd new trail and headed up more, coming out of tree line just before attaining Puppy, the old lookout site, which was very windy-but just gorgeous as you can see Mt. Hood for the first time. This is where the trail *really* starts to climb. We had awesome views of both Mt. Hood and St. Helens. Puppy Point was WINDY!! That could be dangerous if you aren't careful! The drop off there goes straight down to the river!! But what a view!! St Helens AND Hood!! Not to mention the river! BEAUTIFUL! 

The flowers were out and lots more soon to be out! Trillium, bleeding heart, columbine... and lots that I couldn't identify despite what Sarbar says.   I had my plant book with me but I think I got distracted by the amazing view at lunch, so I never looked them up. I did take pics though... so I'll have to try and figure out what they were.

Sarbar put up with all my stupid jokes..."what do you call a man with no arms and legs..." LOL and all of my natural history lessons. Ford did love my story about the little mouse in the Douglas fir cone.

We learned a new term from an old guy..."Summit Lizards" (people napping in the sun) LOL. The funniest thing that happened all day was Ford loudly saying as a shirtless man came running up the trail "Why is that man Nekkie?" The guy heard it too...LMAO!!!! 

We decided to take the newest trail down-the Augspurger Mt. Trail because it connects, and is a tad longer. It rolls across another ridge and then turns flipping to the other side, and to another environment-as it goes north facing, it turns into a forest of Douglas firs and is wet-with snow on the back side, it then flips again, going down the side of Dog Mt. We got excellent views of Windy Mt. coming down. We went through at least 4 different ecosystems in one day! Cool. Not bad for 9 miles and 3000 feet of elevation gain.