Oregon Hikers

After securing our $35 "Washington Discovery Pass" we headed out toward Hamilton Mountain. What I like to do when I visit this place is to always take the wrong road and end up at the equestrian trail head. Then after looking at the map I head back down to highway 14, go a few more feet down the road and see the campground road directly across from Beacon Rock. For $35 a sign and functional toilets might be nice but I digress.

The trail immediately says "Good Morning" to your calf muscles as you quickly ascend a Doug fir forest to some nice views under the power lines. The trail levels out a bit and then descends as you visit a few waterfalls. My favorite is the "Pool of Winds." Careful in winter as both the railings and the rocks are covered in rime ice. Speaking of ice, the trail then starts its steep uphill ascent. I love the sign that says would you like to try "difficult" or "more difficult." Then we started seeing ice along the trail. and then finally ON the trail. Soon we were on the summit, the views of which we enjoyed for approx 30 seconds as it was FREEZING cold and the wind was blowing steadily at 20 to 30 MPH. Wind Chill must have been in the teens...it was brutal. Took the loop down the backside (i.e. the "difficult") route and avoided the ice / saved my knees for another day. Hamilton is a great late fall / winter hike!

Thanks - nice report! One of those Gorge hikes I've never done, but certainly plan to (I've been as far as the waterfalls, once, years ago).

For $35 a sign and functional toilets might be nice but I digress.

...one of the reasons I'm dragging my feet a bit. Not a fan of fees to use public lands -- though I would be in favor of charging members of the Washington Legislature a fee to "use" the Capitol (a public building) each session... you know, since the rest of Washington doesn't actually use that space, just a few elected officials? I'm thinking $100 per session, or $25/day for those who don't spend much time voting on bills... oh, and they would get a port-o-potty for their restroom... maybe out in the parking lot..?

Tom

Splintercat wrote:

For $35 a sign and functional toilets might be nice but I digress.

...one of the reasons I'm dragging my feet a bit. Not a fan of fees to use public lands --

They just posted the list of free days in 2014, and it's pretty long...

http://www.discoverpass.wa.gov/faq/#freedays

No excuse! It's a great hike!

Thanks for sharing. It is a good year round hike and lots of exploring can be done around there and close to the city to.

The discover pass has not seemed to keep all from going I was there a couple weeks ago when I returned to my truck the lot was full.