Mt. Defiance Hike

On a sunny Saturday, June 14th, three of us hiked to the top of Mt. Defiance- said to be the highest mountain along the Columbia Gorge. From the parking lot, it’s 6 miles to the top, with nearly 4,900 ft elevation gain. I carried a heavy pack and was prepared for the hardest hike ever. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought. It didn’t seem as steep as other hikes, such as Munra Point or sections of Table Mountain, but was more of a long steady incline. The scenery along the way was also more interesting than I expected.

The hiking trail began by passing along 3 pleasant waterfalls, positioned near towering rocks.

Cabin Creek Falls is the first waterfall along the Mt Defiance trail.

Hole-in-the-Wall Falls comes next along the trail.

Lancaster falls is the 3rd waterfall seen along the trail. It’s actually an impressive waterfall considering the upper portion of the falls (not as visible) goes even higher up.

You can get a sense from the image above how far and high through the mountains we hiked away from the Columbia River- which is near the altitude we started from. The sky was very clear- not hazy at all- which allowed for great 4 mountain views of Hood, St. Helens, Adams, and Raineer.

Views of snow and radio towers at the top.

A little snow cave created from the warmth of radio transmission equipment.

We started at 9am and returned to the car at 6:30pm. My legs are a little sore.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.