Cook Hill is a 3015′ peak just east of Dog Mountain (post). Dog Mountain is famous for its wildflower meadows and has become so popular that permits are required for weekend hikes during the peak flower season. Cook Hill has its own, albeit less spectacular, meadows and a recent online report informed us that the wildflower display there was near peak. We did some shifting to our planned hikes and headed out to check them out for ourselves.
The hike up Cook Hill is on unofficial trails, partly using old logging roads, primarily on public lands. (A small section past the summit is on private land held by a lumber company.) Matt Reeder featured the hike in his “off the Beaten Trail” guidebook which is what put it on our radar. It can be done as a lollipop loop or a shorter out-and-back. Reeder’s description as well as older trip reports found online mentioned that the trail could be faint in places and that there was no signage present. This was no longer the case as we found a clear trail the entire route and some signage was now present. It may be that the implementation of the permit system has driven more people to this hike, or it may just be more well known now. Whatever the reason we were thankful to those that have been maintaining the unofficial trail.
We arrived at 6:30am and were the third car at the trailhead.
The trailhead is just a large gravel pullout along Cook-Underhill Road.
From the parking area we crossed the road to Jackson Rd (to the left in the above photo).
There is no parking for the trail anywhere along Jackson Rd.
Approximately a tenth of a mile up Jackson Road we came to a gate with a “Cook Trailhead” sign.
We followed the roadbed uphill through a mixed forest with a lot of poison oak off to the sides.
Ookow surrounded by poison oak.
Mt. Defiance (post) across the Columbia River.
Large-flower triteleia
Monkeyflower along the road.
Ookow
Small waterfall through the vegetation.
The first of two crossings of this unnamed creek.
There was a lot of spotted coralroot along the road.
Most of the trees had been cleared from the road, those that remained were easily stepped over.
Anemones
The second creek crossing.
Lupine
White groundsel
Small spring near the junction with the start of the loop.
Reeder mentioned a rock cairn at the start of the loop which was still present, but now there were signs too.
Going counterclockwise seemed to be preferred direction based on trip reports. This was also the shorter distance to the summit at 1.6-miles.
The clockwise sign listed the summit as 2.8-miles away in that direction.
We chose counterclockwise and continued through the forest. The roadbed had been fairly steep but soon this trail began to steepen even more as it approached the small lower meadow.
Arriving at the lower meadow.
At the meadow the trail turned directly uphill through the flowers before reentering the forest.
Balsamroot
Groundsel and balsamroot
Lupine
Death camas
The rocks up ahead made for some nice seats to take in the view from.
Mt. Hood peaking over the ridge to the left with Mt. Defiance to the right.
Mt. Hood
After a much needed break we continued steeply through the forest to the start of the next, much longer meadow.
Vanilla leaf
Starflower
Fairybells
The start of the long upper meadow.
There wasn’t as much balsamroot in the upper meadow, but rather a wide variety of flowers in various stages of blooming.
Larkspur
Violets
Slender phlox and blue-eyed Mary
Phlox
Balsamroot surrounded by larkspur and coastal manroot.
Coastal manroot
Groundsel
Dog Mountain from the meadow.
Chocolate lily
This was the closest lupine to blooming in the upper meadow.
Chickweed
Oregon sunshine yet to boom.
Mt. Hood from the meadow.
The trail continued to climb through the meadow with increasingly better views and flowers.
Woodland stars, larkspur, and lomatium.
Yellow buttercups lining the trail.
Mt. Hood and Mt. Defiance
Mt. Hood
Mt. Defiance
Alpine pennycress
Larkspur and lomatium
Chocolate lily eating a buttercup.
Largeleaf sandwort
The final stretch of the upper meadow.
Violets
Phlox
Dog Mountain
Mt. Hood and Mt. Defiance from the upper meadow.
Table Mountain (post) and Greenleaf Peak (post) further to the west beyond Dog Mountain.
Phlox, paintbrush, and lomatium
After slowly making our way through the meadow the trail climbed to the forested summit of Cook Hill.
At this point we had hiked a little over 3.5-miles and gained over 2800′. To complete the loop portion of the hike we continued past the summit and made an initially steep descent along a ridge past some more meadow and occasional views of Mt. Adams to the north.
Mt. Adams from between trees.
Arnica
The final stretch of the steep descent was through this forest with no understory.
The trail then leveled out along with the ridge and actually made a very gradual climb to a radio tower.
Vine maple overhanging the trail.
It’s hard to tell from the photo but these were huge paintbrushes.
Another view of Mt. Hood and Mt. Defiance.
Dogwood
Trillium
The first tower.
The trail continued past the radio tower to the left on a roadbed and soon passed under a large set of powerlines near more towers at Cook Hill Saddle.
Looking toward Mt. Adams from beneath the powerlines.
Mt. Adams
Wind Mountain (post) sticking up to the left before the Columbia River.
We made a hard right beneath the powerlines on a fainter old roadbed that quickly reentered the forest.
The faint roadbed heading left back toward the forest.
We followed this roadbed back to the signed junction to complete the loop. This part of the trail was more overgrown with a few more logs to step over but it was still quite easy to follow and navigate.
Wild ginger
Candyflower
The trail passed under a talus slope where a fair number of flowers were present.
Lupine and yarrow
Stonecrop
Bee visiting penstemon.
The talus slope.
Descending to the junction.
At the junction we turned right to head back to the car. At this point we’d encountered just three other hikers, but now that it was later, and we were off the loop we passed around two dozen more hikers heading up.
Ookow and bachelor buttons along the trail.
Bachelor button
Heather spotted this arctic skipper on some vetch.
Clarkia. It wasn’t open yet when we’d passed by in the morning.
There were a lot of phantom orchids starting along the lower portion of the hike, but this was the only one with any flowers opened.
Cook-Underhill Road from Jackson Road.
The hike was challenging at 8.5-miles and over 2900′ of elevation gain, but the views and the flowers had made the effort worth it.
The parking area was full when we got back, and several cars had parked along the shoulder of the road which could become an issue at some point. The other thing we saw that could cause problems were the bags of dog poop left along Jackson Road, yuck. Please be respectful of both public and private lands and happy trails!
Flickr: Cook Hill
wanderingyuncks 
5 replies on “Cook Hill – 06/01/2024”
I did this hike in 2013 on an old road
It’s interesting to see that it’s now become an almost official trail. I guess that was bound to happen once Dog got so crowded.
I definitely think the permit system at Dog is partially what has happened. Interestingly I saw a report by Justpeachy from 2013 (i think) from early June and the upper meadow had very few flowers. I know there had historically been cattle grazing up there, but it looks like the meadow has recovered somewhat over the last decade.
Very nice trip Deryl. It’s nice to see an alternative to Dog Mountain.
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Fun! We were just up there too, enjoying the flower meadows in May!