A very misnamed hike.

It wasn’t raining, and that was good enough for me. The gray sky threatened to change its mind at any moment, but I was willing to take the risk: I stuffed a raincoat in my pack, optimistically right down at the bottom, and started driving toward the Gorge. My destination was an unpromising gravel lot in Cascade Locks, wedged between I-80 and a modest residential neighborhood. West of the trailhead the Columbia Gorge Trail stretched off through a scrubby meadow clogged with Scotch broom; to the south, the Pacific Crest Trail wriggled through a burned clearing full of blackened snags. My optimistic raincoat and I went south.

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