Outside With Coco

This last weekend, I was finally able to check off a hike that I have been wanting to do for a while: Dog Mountain in the Columbia Gorge. This hike is 6.5 miles out and back, with about 2,600 ft of elevation. It’s rated as one of the more difficult hikes in the area and has spectacular views and wildflowers at the top. I wasn’t sure if I was in the hiking shape needed for this one, but I went for it, and I am so glad I did.

On Friday, my friend Dagny and I worked a few hours in the morning before heading out and arrived at the trailhead around 1 p.m. It was already pretty warm, around 82 degrees, and the parking lot still had plenty of spots open. We threw on our backpacks, lathered on the sunscreen, and headed to the trail.

Now, I have heard how steep the incline is for this hike, but holy shit. I did NOT realize it was immediately at the start and basically lasting the entire way up. Within minutes, my calves and hamstrings were screaming at me. I was sweating like crazy, and I had to stop a few times. Then we reached the signs that said “Difficult,” pointing to the right, and “More Difficult,” pointing to the left. There was a MORE difficult side to this!? At this point, I felt like I had been hiking up this steep incline forever, but when I looked at my AllTrails app, we had only gone HALF A MILE and still had three miles to go. I started to question everything. Can I do this? What if I can’t make it to the very top? Why didn’t I do more challenging hikes before this to prepare? Whose idea was this?! Mine, that’s who. But we pressed on.

We continued to climb, stopping every few minutes to catch our breath and stretch a bit. Everything felt tight. We were passed by several people who looked perfectly chill climbing up the mountain, smiling and seemingly dry from any sweat. WTF!? But we didn’t give up, even though we wanted to. After a while, there was a break in the trees, and we emerged to sunshine and an opening that overlooked the gorge and gave us the first view of the wildflowers. WOW. What a sight! The yellow flowers peppering the mountainside were blowing in the breeze, and the gorge down below looked so blue/green with little twinkles scattered on the surface. We weren’t near the top yet, but it fueled us with the energy to keep going. If this was just a peek, I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like when we reached the top.

On we climbed. Resting when we needed to but starting to realize that our bodies were adjusting, and I was feeling a second wind growing and pushing us up the mountain. Internally, I kept thinking that I was crazy for attempting to do this hike now. There had been so much happening in my life. My company was going through an acquisition, my daughter had just graduated college, my son’s 19th birthday was fast approaching, and I had just come back from a long weekend at BottleRock in California with my friends. I hadn’t been hiking much. I had barely kept up with my strength training, and my daily 2-mile walks around the neighborhood had been reduced to a couple of times a week. What the hell was I thinking? But then, out of nowhere, the trees opened up once again, and we were greeted with another stunning view. We had reached Puppy Point, a milestone right before the famous wildflower stretch. We were so close!!

After taking a few photos, we continued on and turned the corner. And there they were. The wildflowers, blowing and dancing in the breeze as if they were stretching their leafy arms to the sky and cheering for us that we made it! I’ve seen views like this in photos and videos, but I have not ever hiked high enough to see something like this in person with my own eyes after hiking up with my own legs! It was breathtaking. As I walked along the flowers, a ball of emotion started to make its way up from my stomach, passing through my throat and reaching my eyes. I wept a little bit. I did it!! I didn’t think I could make it all the way up, but I did. And everyone was right, it was SO worth it. I am stronger than I thought.

Believe it or not, that wasn’t the end of the hike. The final stretch was another segment of steep incline until we made it to the summit, where we sat in the grass, ate our Uncrustables, and gazed out at the views before us. Mt. Hood was poking its head out above Mount Defiance to the south, and Mt. Saint Helens stood to the north. I felt amazing and accomplished. I hadn’t had this feeling since I completed my Spartan Sprint race in Lake Tahoe 10 years ago, during a big transition in my life. And here I am 10 years later, at another transition in my life. My kids are now grown, my career is in a solid spot, and my marriage is only getting stronger by the day. I’m moving into a new chapter of life where I can adventure more and do the things I haven’t been able to do prior because I was raising kids, trying to make a career, working on my mental health, and discovering who exactly I was. Sitting at the top of Dog Mountain with jelly smeared on my cheek and sweat dripping down my back, it hit me. Climbing this mountain was difficult (cue Miley Cyrus’ The Climb song); I wanted to give up several times. My body was tired, and I questioned myself constantly, but something in me kept saying, keep going. And I did. And when I reached the top, it was all worth it. Just like the last 20 years of my life. Miley was right, it’s all about the climb.

Ok, ok. Enough of that. Time to descend down this mountain. If I thought my legs were tired before, I was wrong. Heading down the steep mountain activated totally different parts of my legs, and they felt shaky with every step. As we made our way down, we found ourselves greeting sweaty hikers on their way up with big smiles, saying, “You’re almost there!” or “You’ve got this!” It was getting late in the day, 6 PM to be exact. I couldn’t believe how many people we saw starting to hike so late in the day, but I guess they were much more fit, so it probably wasn’t going to take them the three hours it took us to get to the top. Soon, we rounded the final corner and saw the bathrooms indicating that we had reached the bottom! Holy shit. We did it!!! Exhausted but incredibly full of joy, we jumped in the car and headed home.

Look, I am sure that a lot of you guys have already hiked Dog Mountain, and for most of you, it was probably tough but not as ass-kicking as it was for Dagny and me. I understand that there are many other crazy challenging hikes out there more difficult than this one, but for me, this was a doozy. It was a physical and mental challenge. Now, looking back, it symbolized the last 20 years of my life and also felt like the kickoff to a whole new chapter that I have begun. There will be more difficult climbs—way more difficult than this one. But when I face those, I will remember this day and how I was able to push through, get to the top, and how rewarding it all was.