On Memorial Day Greg and I hiked part of the Gray Butte Trail. What a great little hike! Easy and level with a lot of views and wildflowers.
Following directions in Sullivan’s hiking guide we parked at the base of Gray Butte and hiked south towards Smith Rock State Park. The trail starts off in the trees:
But then quickly pops out into the open. We could see Gray Butte itself towering above us. There are no trails that go up there, but there is a road:
You get a lot of bang for your buck on this hike. The views are stupendous almost right from the beginning.
And there are plenty of spring wildflowers too:
It was REALLY hot, so this area where a bunch of bitterroot were blooming was our turnaround point:
However, while Greg was taking hundreds of bitterroot photos I hiked a tiny bit further to a high point just ahead where I could see the tippy top of Mt. Hood:
As well as all the mountains spread out before me. Yowza!!
Looking back at Gray Butte. The trail we hiked in on can be seen on the slope on the right:
We would have gone further, but it was just too hot. We had also originally planned to do a short stretch of a different trail described in Sullivan’s book, but we were sapped of energy from the heat, plus the clouds were gathering quickly, so we headed home. This is a cool area with a number of trails. We’d like to explore around here more, preferably when it’s not so hot.
