hamilton mountain and the pool of winds

Today, I took a sick-of-work day and climbed a mountain instead.

First, we went to Rodney Falls and the pool of winds. The pool is a pool of water in the middle of the waterfall, where water fall into and wind and water visibly fly out of. It was awesome.

Along the hike up the mountain, we got several great views of the Columbia Gorge

which Dean enjoyed as well.

From the top, we could see Mt Adams and Mt Hood.

And then we made it to the top. That's Mt Hood Behind me. I've only been hiking in Washington one other time. In the picture of the Gorge shot, you can see a rock bordering the river in the middle of the right side of the picture. That's Beacon Rock, the only other hike I've taken on this side. This one was way more extensive and it felt good to do a considerable hike where I was the prepared person who found the location and the route (and also brought fire, a compass and extra clothing in case we got lost). We only got momentarily lost once when we got to talking and blindly following Dean. Fortunately, he had taken us to the path that we wanted to take in the first place. It's good to have another waterfall under my belt too. I love this area.