Table Mountain Hike

Four of us hiked Table Mountain on Saturday, June 7th- the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge, just a few miles west of the Bridge of the Gods, near Bonneville Dam. While the weather was a little overcast and rainy most of the trip, we still had nice views, saw interesting geological features, and most of all, got in some great exercise.

We started from a ’shortcut’ parking area near a hot springs facility, which made it approximately 8 miles and 3,200 ft gain. It was a challenge finding the trailhead. Thanks to a GPS and a combination of directions from different guidebooks, we found our way to the top. There was snow at the summit and it was chilly, which seems unusual for June.

The fog combined with the unusual shaped rock formations made it look eerie in places, like we were on a mysterious planet or something.

The east side of the Heartbreak Ridge loop has a large rockslide scramble area.

The west side of the Heartbreak Ridge loop may have been slightly easier to descend, but probably not by much- it was still very steep with loose rocks- it was kind of sketchy in some places- not having stable footing beside the sheer cliff.

The forest that the pacific crest trail passes through was dense and lush green.

This tree won the award for the most moss coverage.

We took a lot of breaks and returned to civilization after 7 hours and 15 minutes. Started at 10:30am, ended at 5:45pm. I was a little hungry after that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 1:14 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.