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Strawberry Island,(aka Hamilton Island), and Ft Cascades trails

Posted by bjul49 (2008-03-27)

     The Mazmamas are doing this this coming Sunday, but I'm off to hike Drift Creek South that day, so I thought I'd check it out today.    It was cold and windy, but not too much rain. Barely 5 miles.
     Take I. 205 to Hwy 14 East to MP 38.5 ( Of course you can go I. 84 and pay the toll twice if you want!),turn right onto Dam Access Rd, for 0.1 mile, then go right again .At Stop sign go right for 1.6 miles to end of road. Trail starts from far west of parking lot, signed Strawberry Island Trail.
Okay; first the disadvantages.You can hear I. 84 most of the time, and the trains on both sides. There is trash for the first 1/4 mile thanks to the many fisherman, and the lack of any kind of garbage receptacle(high use area, Duh!). There is also an encroaching housing development on the North side and some not very interesting trail.
   Now the advantages. There is very little poison oak. It can be hiked all year, there may be flowers later, though I didn't see any Strawberry leaves, there are a lot of birds. I saw Red-Wing Blackbirds, Geese, a Great Blue Heron, small Swallows and missed many more as I don't identify birds well. It is nearly flat. As you go around you get to see that it was an island! There are some great views of Hamilton Mtn and Beacon Rock from an angle that can only be glimpsed from I.84. There are some nice look-out benches.The trail is an oval which I hiked clockwise;towards the end you can see the parking lot, so I cut down to it as I'd had sufficient of the samely trail.
    Next I drove back to the Ft Cascades National Site.(At the Stop sign go right, it's marked). This would have been a much better place to start the hike. It is a cute, wooded with mossy boulders trail, nicely marked with signage about ... Ft Cascades, which purportedly was here. Same old story...Native Americans, happily living here for 100s of years, upset by settlers moving in, are killed when they try to get their own land back. Miserable fort built; within a few years fort and land abandoned, but whoops, all the Native Americans are now dead..
    Well... This hike is also a loop and I Think( not totally sure, but seems likely) that you could do 1/2 the Ft loop, then go left just after the narrow part of the oval(near dam view) to reach and cross road to pick up the Strawberry Island loop and then return for the rest of the fort loop..( think of 2 eggs, joined by a thread).
A little further east on Hwy 14( before Bridge of the Gods, so, on your way back) is the site for Ft Rains, which it did all the way back to Porland, fat little raindrops hoping to be snow.

Re: Strawberry Island,(aka Hamilton Island), and Ft Cascades trails

Posted by meana39 (2008-03-27)

I discovered this hike last year and like it for a short "after work" hike. The panoramic views of the gorge are stunning! It would be a great place to capture an awesome sunset photo too, but I haven't done that yet. I didn't see nearly as much bird life as you though, but then we had the dog with us and my two noisy girls as well.

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