Climbing the Beacon Rock Switchbacks

Click link to view this shot as an Interactive Sphere -- it is definitely the best way to view this panoramic sphere!

Based on my extensive skimming of the signs on the trail and the WTA.org hike description, I can tell you the following: Beacon Rock is the plug of an extinct volcano! This 850' tall rock was much harder than it's surrounding basalt layers, so when the Columbia River (with help from the Lake Missoula glacial outburst floods) carved out the Columbia Gorge, Beacon Rock withstood the erosion while the rest was carried away.

This trail was originally built by Henry Biddle. Henry bought Beacon Rock for $1 back around 1915 or so in a successful effort to save it from the US Army Corps of Engineers, who wanted to use it to make gravel. (In those days it does seem like all the fun engineering ideas involved grinding and sluicing anything big they could find.) Anyway, Henry had other ideas, so he and his one assistant spent a few years building the trail. Aside from a few repairs over the years since then, this trail with all these cool switchbacks is still pretty much what they built. It's fun to see all the old metalwork and concrete. It all feels very solid, too. And the views make it very much worth the effort.

Taken in: United States / Washington / Skamania (show map)

Taken on: October 3, 2013

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