Original Dog Mountain Trail

[windmtnpete]

I haven't been around long enough to know the entire history of Dog Mountain in detail, but I have talked with several people who have given me stories from the past. Apparently, there was a fire lookout at the upper meadows and they had a man who stayed there all summer watching for Gorge wildfires.

There's an old trail that connects the meadows to the summit. It's camouflaged all year by all the flowering plants except when it's most needed during ice storms. That's when it suddenly appears and offers safe passage to us travelers when the other trails are covered in thick ice. It's the upper narrow, rocky path, very steep in places so water doesn't puddle, it's like a stairway to heaven. I have been using this alternative trail lately because it's in such great condition now. You can see it in this pic....

[windmtnpete]

On this particular day (this past Wednesday) when I took this pic, the air temp in the lower forest was in the lower 30's because of the insulation from the trees and lack of wind, the ground was still frozen. When arriving to the upper meadows, I first got the cold blast from the east winds (typical) which except for the wind chill was slightly warmer than the forest below. Then, as I climbed the stairway and turned a corner, the wind suddenly shifted and blasted from the south.... it was like someone turned on a warm furnace. Air temp must have been in the upper 60's at this point, it was an ominous, surreal, classic pineapple express pattern.

[trailcrew25]

You probably know that this used to be the original Cascade crest trail until the change in 1973-4. The trail ended up connecting with Grassy knoll, then on up to Big huck.

[Eric Peterson]

Hey Trailcrew, I thought the old CCT was actually just a bit lower than the current little back door route that's there now, could be wrong though...

Edit:

Dug out the old '57 USGS and see now that it looks like the 2 routes shared a portion -

The lookout was located at Puppy Dog Pt with signs of concrete footings still there yet, then the back door
route takes off from there, IIRC

[VanMarmot]

What you're seeing is most likely a use trail that becomes visible when the veg is down. The original CCT (and later, briefly, the old alignment of the PCT) contoured around lower down on the E side of Dog. The LO was at Puppy Dog - starting with a tent and ending with a little wooden structure. Interestingly, this is one of the first places the USFS tried radios, rather than single line telephones, to communicate with its LOs. See: Looking for the CCT #1 and Looking for the CCT #2.