Rowena Plateau and McCall Point

Mt. Hood on the wildflower slopes of McCall Point

Rowena Crest is a plateau sticking out over the Columbia River on the Oregon side, about halfway between Hood River and The Dalles, just past Mosier. It's a lot like a eastern gorge version of Crown Point, in that it's a nice, wide view plateau resting on some old volcanic flows right along the path of the old historic highway. Today, the historic highway winds up the hills to this overlook, which offers a great view both east and west. From Rowena you can walk down the plateau to the areas overlooking the river (an easy gentle mile), or you can go uphill south to a mountain called McCall Point. It's a popular destination, especially in spring, which is when the wildflowers come out.

I've had Rowena and McCall point on my radar for some time. Two things kept me away from it until this past weekend:

1. It's a long drive, over an hour. For a short hike, that's tough to justify, especially when the hike only looks to be worth doing during the flower bloom, so you have a month window.
2. The hike has a reputation for lots of poison oak and ticks (This is a frequent problem in most eastern gorge hikes). I've more or less managed to come to terms with Poison Oak, but ticks make me nervous thanks to a bout of Lyme Disease in 2010 (Spoiler alert, I lived).

We're both still working our way back into good hiker shape and we wanted something new, so we decided to commit. We went to bed early, got up at 7:30, and reached the trailhead by 9:30, ready to rock n roll on the most eastern day hike we've ever done. It proved to be completely worth it. The gorge never disappoints.

The view east from Rowena

The river beyond the Plateau

East from a little ways up the McCall Point trail

The trail to McCall point is pretty manageable. It's only about a mile and a half to the top, though it does get harder as you climb. You'll get about 1,000 feet of elevation as you go. The trail starts by traversing a nice big flat-ish meadow covered in wildflowers. After the meadow ends and the hill starts, the trail just keeps switch-backing up the hill till you reach the top. However the area is mostly open air, and you have constant views. The trail always switches back at a cliff edge looking east, and when it departs the cliff you stroll through wildflowers with great views west and south. Your constant companion is Mt. Adams, which starts off from the parking lot as a tiny white speck just over the north mountain wall and grows bigger with each step, like it's slowly gathering the courage to ask you out.

A perfect bush of Lupine

The trail on the way up

Purple = Lupine. Yellow = Balsamroot. Red = Indian paintbrush

The lower meadows and the Rowena plateau to the north

Shady section

The trail follows an old wagon road, but it's really only noticeable near the bottom

Rowena Plateau, the River, and Mt. Adams saying hello

A different yellow flower

There is indeed a plethora of Poison Oak. The trail is wide enough to avoid it, but when passing people I had to take care not to step in the stuff while letting people by. I saw a lot of ignorant hikers do exactly that as they let us pass. People gonna be itchy in three days. Sucks for them, learn your plants! *Gives self a high five for being a cool sexy outdoor man*

I didn't find any ticks, but I took special care to avoid tall grass of any sort and spent half the hike looking at my legs every time I touched a plant. Ticks are dumb. Why do they exist. If god is real I'm going to ask him why he made ticks because he really blew that one.

You'll know you've almost hit the top when all of a sudden you reach another meadow viewpoint through a forested section and BOOM, Mt. Hood is just sitting there peacocking at you.

SUP HIKERS, LOOK HOW SEXY I AM, LOOK AT MY AMAZING GLACIERS AND RIDGES, it seems to say, playing coy with a cloud around the peak. Meanwhile Mt. Adams gets jelly across the river.

"I SAW THEM FIRST, BACK OFF, HOOD!"

Hood responds with "THEY ARE ON MY SIDE OF THE RIVER, YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE, ADAMS YOU ROUNDED TOP LOSER MOUNTAIN. AT LEAST YOUR SISTER HELENS DID SOMETHING COOL ONCE" Then Mt. Adams gets sad and pouts and my mountain fanfiction ends.

The flowers in bloom aren't Dog Mountain levels of saturation, but it's close. Balsamroot and Lupine litter the hills, with scatterings of other flowers. I think we were a couple weeks late from peak bloom too, so it probably looks even better sometimes. Still, am incredible display.

The top of McCall Point is a little loop with some sitting picnic spots to linger and admire the view. You can see Hood, looming closely to the southwest over the flowers. Adams lingers north over the plateau and the river. You can see up the Columbia for a short way to the bend, and westerly to Dog Mountain over the Mosier township. The town of Lyle sits on a cliff at the mouth of the Klickat River valley to the northeast.

Mt. Hood from the summit of McCall

Mt. Adams and some Balsamroot

Looking sexy, Mt. hood

Cool sexy hiker man

FLOWERS!

Mt. Adams

The river and Mt. Adams

Hood

Girls love flowers

Hood and out of focus balsamroot

What a single isolated plant of Balsamroot looks like

The town of Lyle and the Klickitat river valley behind it

A small trail continues from the summit down a saddle then farther up a bigger hill, but both me and Keeley decided it wasn't worth the climb. We putzed around the amazing summit for a while then headed back. The amount of people who decided to show up between 9:30 and 11 was astounding, and we gave ourselves a high five for getting there early. On the way back we never got a tenth of a mile without having to pass people heading up.

At the bottom we decided to head down the plateau trail, past a couple of ponds that felt like the New York City of poison oak. We over looked the river and headed back up to the car. All in all, less than 6 miles, 1,300 feet of climbing, and some mild sunburn. We were done by 1. We celebrated with pizza, beer and ice cream, carefully undoing all our fitness.