It’s been five years since we last hiked Catherine Creek to check out the spring wildflower bloom in the Columbia River Gorge. (Nancy wrote about it back then.) That had been a fiercely windy day, pushing us around the trail, and not exactly something I was eager to repeat. This year it was blustery, but not uncomfortably so. The views of the Oregon side of the Gorge and of Mt. Hood were stunning and surreal, and a wide variety of wildflowers dotted the grassy meadows and stands of oak, maple and pine — and even the basalt walls — along the Catherine Creek Trail. There was still plenty of water in the seasonal creek, and there was a new (since 2019) solid bridge at the start of our hike, and a sketchy log-and-plank crossing at the end. Wildflower identification isn’t something I’m very good at, and was done after the fact using searches and posts by other more well informed hikers, so feel free to propose corrections in the comments. Check out Nancy’s blog about this trip.