The Historic Columbia River Highway Trail winds around Tooth Rock (Steve Hart)

• Start point: Tooth Rock Trailhead
• End point: Eagle Creek Staircase
• Trail Log: Trail Log
• Hike Type: Loop
• Distance: 1.8 miles
• Elevation gain: 250 feet
• High point: 440 feet
• Difficulty: "Moderatey" is not in the list of possible values (Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Very Difficult) for this property.
• Seasons: All year
• Family Friendly: No
• Backpackable: No
• Crowded: No

Hike Description

When the original Columbia River Highway was designed by Samuel Lancaster and others it was decided to skirt Tooth Rock, which rose precipitously from the Columbia River, on a pair of viaducts. The construction of Bonneville Dam in the 1930s forced the relocation of the highway and the original route was abandoned in 1937 when a new tunnel was drilled through the rock. The old viaducts remained in place, largely forgotten for almost 60 years. In 1996 this portion of the old highway was refurbished as a hiking and bicycling path. The Eagle Creek Viaduct was repaired from rockfall damage and a new pedestrian bridge was built over the east portal of Tooth Rock Tunnel. These features are all part of one leg of this schizophrenic hike. Do the easy stroll on the old highway and come back the same way if you're not up for close encounters with post-fire rampant regrowth.

BUT . . .

If you want to go back even further in time, make this a loop using the route of the 1856 Tooth Rock Portage Road. Before the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, the old portage road was a well-used shortcut that linked to trails for Wauna Viewpoint, Wauna Point, Dublin Lake, and Tanner Butte. The route has been abandoned since the fire, which scorched most of the 0.7 mile route. Plants such as Scouler's willow, thimbleberry, elderberry, nettle, and fireweed have had time to grow thick on the road bed. There are also numerous downed trees to clamber over and under. Worst of all, everything is laced together with an unholy alliance of thorny vines, namely trailing blackberry, Armenian blackberry, and the bloodiest of all, blackcap raspberry, all sun lovers that flourish in disturbed areas when there’s no shady canopy. In addition, there's a liberal disposition of poison oak in the vicinity of Tooth Rock. So . . . to do the Tooth Rock Portage Road, and to make it easier for those who follow you, come prepared! Minimally, you will need: long baggy pants, hiking boots, a long-sleeved shirt, thick gloves, a machete, and a pruning saw. Between the tangles, there are some short, easy areas, and the east leg of the road has far fewer obstacles than the west end. Brush will be thick in the summer, and passage will be easier in winter/early spring.

Start at the Tooth Rock Trailhead and hike the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail eastward. You'll pass a power substation, where a plaque honors BPA employee William S. Acton. Only a narrow screen of Douglas-firs separates you from all the traffic. After about a quarter of a mile, look carefully for a small “To Tanner Butte” sign that survived the fire (you wouldn’t necessarily see it if you weren’t looking) and points up the brushy road bed of the Tooth Rock Portage Road.

• The old wagon road, constructed in 1856, was the first on the Oregon side to circumvent the Cascades on the Columbia by heading up over the back side of Tooth Rock, at whose base the Columbia lapped in times of high water. It was a 425-foot climb for the wagons from river level, begun by one W.R. Kilborn in 1855 and improved the next year by Joseph Ruckel and Harrison Olmstead. By 1859, a portage railroad (the first railroad in Oregon) had been built around the base of Tooth Rock using a trestle, However, part of the trestle was swept away by spring floods that same year. By 1861, the railroad had pretty much replaced the wagon road as the main means of transportation around the Cascades.

You will encounter thorny vines and downed trees immediately, but passage is possible if you are armed and protected appropriately. It's seems almost surreal, on what was quite recently a well-used pathway, with the freeway below and the Bonneville Dam complex visible, to be hacking your way through this jungle. Through the trees, views open up to Hamilton Mountain, Table Mountain, and Greenleaf Peak.

Turn off the old highway and head up the hill here. This road was built in the 19th century to allow wagons to be portaged around the Cascades. You'll climb steadily, twisting and turning, to a summit. Right at the top is a use path branching off to the right, that heads steeply up the hill to the Gorge Trail and Tanner Road #777. Now the old wagon road drops as steeply as it climbed. It's not hard to drift back in time and picture men struggling with wagons and oxen up and down these hills. Soon you'll reach a spot where the old road was blasted out of existence during construction of the Historic Highway in the early 1900s. A switchbacking informal trail leads 20 feet down to the Historic Highway Trail.

This piece of the original Columbia River Highway was built in 1914 and abandoned in 1937. Just as the wagon road was demolished to make room for the highway, so too was this older version of the highway destroyed to make room for the new. To connect these various pieces as a trail, modern trail builders had to resort to a staircase to link the different levels together.

Walk west on the old highway and you'll soon come to a modern footbridge across the east end of the freeway tunnel. Just beyond that is the Eagle Creek Viaduct. This viaduct is actually a "half-viaduct", with half the road resting on a narrow ledge blasted from the rock and half the road on the viaduct. The railing here is the same as the standard arched, rubble masonry walls used as guardrails on much of the highway. Much of the original railing was lost and the viaduct was heavily damaged by a rock slide during the construction of a new powerhouse at the dam. The deck and railing have been repaired for trail use. The old road loops around Tooth Rock with some amazing views of Bonneville Dam, the Columbia River and the westbound freeway lanes constructed in the 1950s. There's even an improved viewpoint at the Eagle's Nest. Soon you'll come to Tooth Rock Viaduct, which is basically a bridge pinned to the side of the mountain. A section of this viaduct had collapsed from the weight of accumulated rock and was repaired in 1996. Railings here are similar to the Moffett Creek Bridge and the Shepperds Dell Bridge. The old highway crosses the modern freeway and meanders west back to the trailhead.

Maps

• Maps: Hike Finder

Fees, Regulations, etc.

• Picnic tables
• No overnight parking

Trip Reports

• Search Trip Reports for Tooth Rock Loop Hike

Related Discussions / Q&A

• Search Trail Q&A for Tooth Rock Loop Hike

Guidebooks that cover this hike

• 100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon - 3rd Edition, by William L Sullivan

More Links

Contributors

• Stevefromdodge (creator)