Upper Dog Creek

Dog Creek is is another nice canyon destination in the Columbia Gorge. There are two primary objectives here: 1) Lower Dog Creek (3C III) - The recommended route which visits the best part of the canyon, doing an out & back from the bottom. This route is described on a separate page. 2) Upper Dog Creek (3C IV) - This page describes a full descent of Dog starting from the radio towers atop Cook Hill. This option is long and strenuous and takes most of a day. The upper drainage is wild, overgrown, seldom-visited, and rugged. As one canyoneer puts it: "The two miles of river walking in upper Dog Creek are beautiful, but likely not worth the 4hrs it takes to reach the next waterfall. While the first waterfall is spectacular, you may change your opinion after you slog your way through the creek for 30min and discover you have only traveled 0.1 miles." This option is a high pay-to-play. A number of other approaches to Dog have all been tried and none of them are good.

Drop a car at the exit and head east on Hwy 14 for 0.6mi. Turn left on the Cook-Underwood Rd and drive north for 3.4mi. In the strangely named town of Mill A, turn left on Bunker Keys Rd for 1.1mi to a junction and turn left onto the powerline road. Follow this up through several switchbacks to park near the radio towers at the saddle. The lower end of this road can be quite rough; high clearance, maybe 4WD recommended. From the saddle, descend the powerline road westerly about 0.6mi, then break off and descend gentle slopes to drop into Dog Creek just above Elkhorn Falls. Two tributaries come together here, plunging over the same drop to join at the bottom.

While it's only about 0.3mi downstream to R2, it's a strenuous bushwhack / creek walk. Expect it to take at least an hour. From UD-R2 to the start of the upper narrows, it's another 0.75mi. Expect another hour, probably closer to two, of creek-walking. About 10min before the start of the upper narrows, reach: Upon exiting the narrows, continue downstream 0.2mi (~10min) until it closes up again. This is the top of the Meditation Pool sequence.