When spring wildflowers are blooming, the Catherine Creek and Coyote Wall areas are popular with hikers. To avoid crowds, consider this loop hike located between these two areas.

distance: 5.4 miles
elevation gain:  1,055 ft.
difficulty: moderate
best season: February-May
drive time from Portland: 1 hour 20 minutes
parking pass: none
hike description: OregonHikers.org – Catherine Creek-Rowland Basin Loop Hike

The Hike

Starting at the Catherine Creek trailhead, we took a former road on the left and headed up a grassy slope.

The Catherine Creek arch came into view as we hiked up.

Two types of desert parsley were in bloom throughout the hike. The Columbia desert parsley below was just getting started.

View to the west, with Mount Hood barely visible under the clouds.

Hiking up through open grassy meadows as we head towards the power lines.

Shooting stars filled small areas along the way.

Big views of the Columbia River, looking east.

The hike goes through several wooded areas, and this section of forest with Douglas-firs looked more like parts of the Western Gorge than the typical Eastern Gorge scrub oak forest.

At the high point of our hike, we took advantage of an opening in the trees with big views to stop for a long lunch break.

View through Ponderosa pines

This loop hike travels across open grassy fields, into scrub oak forest, and back again several times.

Now in the upper section of Coyote Wall area trails, we took the Upper Labyrinth Trail to head back towards Catherine Creek.

The hillsides in this area of the hike were filled with yellow desert parsley.

Layers of chunky basalt in the Rowland Basin section of the hike

This was the only section of the hike with Balsamroot in bloom.

Crossing a talus slope on the way back to the trailhead

As we closed the loop, we crossed through a wet area with several springs.

We were a bit early for wildflowers on this day, but it was nice to not have as many ticks or poison oak to contend with.