Climb a mountain?? We must be crazy...YES!!!

On August 18^th, Laina and I decided to embark upon our longest highest trail yet, Hamilton Mountain.  This trail is located up the Columbia River Gorge in the Beacon Rock State Park.  As always we were excited to see how we would do and what we would see.  The more hikes we do the more we have the fever to reach new heights, explore new areas and go farther than we have before.

We knew that this hike would require us to buy the Discover Pass, but what we didn’t know is that there was no person there to buy the pass from so back down the hill we go to the ranger station where we learned about the hike, the neighboring trail and got our yearly pass.  With this pass we were assured to venture out to more new places where we could get our money’s worth.  Well with pass in hand we go back up the hill to start our trek.  We were expecting a 7.5 mile hike with 2100 ft elevation gain.

As we head up the trail the top of the mountain is covered in clouds but we are hopeful that it is going to clear up.  The trail looks to be well maintained and like it will be a great hike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we start the decent I take my self-portrait I thought let’s take a picture before I look too bad…lol because this is going to be a long hike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We head across over the creek along one of a few bridges on the trail.

As we approach the Hardy Creek and trek on down the stairs to see Hardy Falls, I was quite disappointed that we couldn’t see it very much but at least we got a glimpse.

 We keep on moving and up the trial we see another bridge and a sign that says Pool of Winds and Hamilton Mountain.  We head on up to Pool of the Winds, which turns out to be one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time.   Rodney Falls which flows down a huge tree in a cave that pushes the wind into a smaller pool of water that makes a whorling wind sounds.

A bridge across Hardy Creek right before we got to the Pool of the Winds.,

 

 

 Water running down the huge tree and pushing wind out of the cave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water whorling around in this pool   

 

   Looking down the Hardy Creek  

 

 

Me in front of the Pool of the Winds

 

We head back down the trail and over the bridge to continue on up to Hamilton Mountain Trail

Walking across the bridge

  A view of Rodney Falls from the bridge  

In keeping with the spirit of my theme of looking at the details I decided to take lots of pictures on the way up because we could tell that the clouds were not parting and we wanted to enjoy the whole journey.

 

At least we know we are headed the right way

 

  Huckleberries on the side of the trail.

                                                               Oregon Grapes – however we are in Washington

All the way up the lower part of the trail we kept coming up to view points that showed us the beauty of the Columbia Gorge.  We are truly blessed to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth in my opionion.

This is a look back at where we had just come from if you look close you can see the trail going right below the towers.

As we get to the fork in the trail we have to decide which way to go most people would be worried ……but if you know anything by now about Laina and I we don’t take the easy road to anything so up the hill we go …. More difficult it is!!!

More beautiful views a little higher up the hill.

 

And the trail is getting rougher

And the views are getting better

 And we are getting higher

More trail that seems to keep on going and going

But everytime we get to another open point and see the view it is enough to keep us going.  Although we are tired we know that when we get to the top it will be magical.  I see a little ledge where I walk out on to take this picture

 



As I turn to go back to the main trail I look up and see this man sitting on the edge of the hill writing in his journal, or at least that is what I imagine.  (Can you all see the man?)  I mentioned to Laina that this would be an awesome place to come to collect your thoughts and write however I would not hike all the way up there just for that on a regular basis...lol.

 



 

As we go around the next bend there are two rocks that make a V and through the gap you can see the river and valley below.

 

 

This picture reminds me of Christmas seeing the holly bush 

A cool odd shaped red berry.

 



 A interesting looking plant

Pretty purple flowers very delicate looking

 

And even higher up the sun is shining and we can see the two Bonneville Dams on the Columbia River.  The one on the left is on the Washington side and the one on the right is on the Oregon side of the river. 

 

 

Another view of the valley below

 

 

As we turn to continue on up the mountain the clouds are starting to roll in more.

Pretty white daisy's that were at the end of their life but still pretty anyway

The sun shining down on the valley and river below looked so beautiful that it just took my breathe away everytime we got to a viewpoint.

As I see the clouds getting thicker the closer we got to the top I was getting crabby I had a feeling that we were going to be shut out from seeing the true magical view.  Laina was looking at me like come on let's get this over with.

 

 

And we continue on up the hill.



Delicate pretty yellow flowers.

An odd looking fungus I could not get a very good picture of this but it was so interesting to look at.

 

 

Blackberries



Raspberries

Round white flowers all in a cluster.

 

 

Again this picture does not due this justice but these leaves were huge.

 

 

And as we come around the bend we made it to the top!!!  We were so excited.  This is a rare picture of Laina and I together.  We were so elated and that fact that it was foggy could not wipe the smiles off our faces....because we had accomplished our highest climb yet.

 

 

This was our wonderful view from the top.  All we had to say when we popped over the top and this was all we could see was well I guess we have to do this again.

I was so proud of us and if you look close on this post someone had written "I did it"  and that was exactly how I was feeling.

 

But we still had a long way to go to get back to the car.  So since we didn't get the picture of the view from the top we had to take more detail pictures of plants and etc.

 More red berries - I really should buy a book so I know what all of these plants and berries are called so I can give you all an education lesson while reading my blog...lol.

As we come over the backside the fog starts to break and we can see the sights again - I guess we should have stayed at the top and took a longer rest.

Pumice Rock on top of the mountain - does this mean that we are actually on top of a volcano???  Or maybe it was just another rock that looked like pumice.

 

 

We turn and look back at where we had come from and besides admirring how high up there the top was the top was starting to clear - figures our luck.

Another picture of the river and dams below.

Coming down the backside we turn and see this group of kids climbing up the side of the rock face - no this is not how we got up there.  Of course my mom side kicked in and I was worried that they were going to fall.   

More sun as we come lower down the backside.  A view looking down the Columbia River.

 

As we got about a mile from the car we had a bit of a scare in that Laina fell and got hurt.  Not only was I worried but we realized that we need to be better prepared in case something does happen to us.  Although we carry back packs and prepare for getting lost we were not prepared injury - (don't worry that has been resolved).

As we got back on the trail we realized that this hike was much longer than we had planned we must have taken a wrong turn or miscalculated although we did climb over 2100 ft in elevation our final mileage was just over 11 miles...needless to say we were very tired but we both knew that we have to do the hike again to get a beautiful picture from the top.  Below is what the top of the mountain looked like once we were back down again.

 

 

In the past I when I saw cars pulled over for hikers to climb up mountains or I saw picture of people climbing these heights I thought no way those people are insane.  Now I look at this mountain and I think "We've got this!!!"  Yes we might be a bit crazy but it is amazing that our bodies are able to climb to such heights, I can't wait to see which mountain we climb next.

 So this journey too will have a to be continued.....