RHH's photos with the keyword: dog mountain

The photo is from a hike last summer at Dog Mountain in the Columbia River gorge. We spent several days exploring old and new places in the gorge while doing some orchid hunting there.

One of our spring wildflowers that covers whole hillsides on the eastern slopes of the Cascades and the Columbia Plateau. This example was photographed at Dog Mountain in the Columbia River gorge.

Farewell-to-Spring is the name of the flower, not my goodbye to a season now long past. The botanical name for the flower is Clarkia amoena or Godetia amoena, and it was photographed last spring at Dog Mountain near the Columbia River. The bee or wasp is unknown to me, though I wouldn't mind having an ID.

Dog Mountain is along the Columbia River gorge near White Salmon. Last spring we hiked the trail to the top of the mountain. We were a bit disappointed with the wildflowers which were nearly finished due to an early and dry spring, but the day was beautiful and the views were magnificent. This was taken looking back down the trail, with the mountains on the Oregon side of the gorge in the background and the river itself with Interstate Highway 84 just visible at the right of the picture.

The insect is the Small Milkweed Bug, Lygaeus kalmii, and the flowers are one of the Buttercups, perhaps the Swamp Buttercup, Ranunculus orthorhynchus. The photo was taken near the Columbia River on a hike up Dog Mountain.

The view is west from near the top of Dog Mountain. The other peak is Wind Mountain and the other side of the river is the state of Oregon. The flowers in the foreground include Indian Paintbrush, Balsamroot and Lupine. This was a hike we did a few weeks ago, a total of 7-8 miles and 2800 feet in elevation gain.

This was photographed along the trail at Dog Mountain in the Columbia River gorge and identified by a friend as the Two-banded Checkered Skipper, Pyrgus ruralis.

This was taken by my wife on a recent visit to the Columbia River gorge. We were preparing to climb Dog Mountain as the sun rose and she took this excellent shot just before we started hiking.

There are five species in the genus Piperia that can be found in Washington. They all have green to white flowers and in most, including this, the flowers are quite small. Not only are the flowers small in this case, however, but by the time the plant blooms the leaves have withered, so all one sees is a stem, about twelve inches tall, with these green and white flowers. This is the Flat-spurred Piperia, so-called not for the shape of its spur but for the fact that spur is at a ninety degree angle to the stem. Its botanical name is Piperia transversa. These were photographed at Dog Mountain in the Columbia River gorge. Towards the end of June I had the privilege of taking friends, a couple from Germany, on an three-day orchid tour of Washington. We started in the Columbia Gorge where I met them, worked out way up through eastern Washington and ended at several sites in western Washington, including Goat Mountain and Whidbey Island. We saw 15 species of orchids, a bit less than half of our native species and a very good number for any time of the year.