Set out today to bag Dog Mountain – however, it was a tough day on the trail to Dog Mountain from Lennox Creek. 12+ miles just past the marked trail on Gaia and Caltopo below Anderson Pass. Soaked from the approach from rain-soaked trees and bushes from the walk on the initial 2 miles on decommissioned 57, now called the Lennox Creek trail. Although work has been done on the trail the past few weeks by fellow WTA member CP, the rain last night made for a very wet day, all the way up the switchbacks – bracken ferns and blueberry/huckleberry bushes soaked me non-stop. My GTX boots were thoroughly wet – squishy socks and feet – terrible – had to wring my socks out several times.
The route up was a hard muddy, rooty, narrow, steep old miners trail up. Upon finishing the switchbacks, the trail meanders through large boulders and old trees. Once you gain the ridge at about 4200 feet, the path becomes much better and opens up to a beautiful open alpine basin. The trail lies below the very rocky ridge above and eventually pops up at Anderson Pass.
I continued on the marked trail on maps to the end at the east end of the ridge just above Anderson Lake, and eventually followed about 10 pink trail markers until losing all sense of a trail, and ended up navigation across steep fern-covered talus and fir needed covered dirt, before abandoning at attempt at a summit, as I think this is not the best route. You can see my meanderings in GPX file the ALlTrails link at the bottom of this report. Route finding was a challenge and I failed to find a suitable route to the summit via the long route. A couple of more challenging, direct routes look feasible. I expect a direct ascent once gaining the ridge or midway from the basin may yield better results and post-hike research confirms a more direct route once the flat trail to the basin is obtained, either from the initial 4200-foot spot, or about 1/3 of the way across the open basin. Next time.
https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/dog-mountain-lennox-creek-3e441ee
