Larch Mountain stands as one of the three big shield volcanoes of the extended Boring Lava Fields. Rising to 4055 feet high, the mountain presents an array of contrasts. Once the site of intense logging industry, the mountain shows an amazing natural renewal a century after most of the timber production came to a halt. Pockets of old growth, wonderful views from the top and remnants of past industry all make Larch Mountain and its crater, a fascinating walk in the woods.
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We saw earlier how to climb to the top of the Larch Mountain crater from the Columbia River on the 1915 historic Larch Mountain Trail. But you don’t have to gain 4,400 feet over the 6.6-mile trek up to Sherrard Point. You can actually cheat and start at the top. Simply drive up Larch Mountain Road to its end. Fourteen miles up from the Columbia River Highway just west from Crown Point. Park in the large lot near the summit.
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Until 1940, there really was no fast and easy way to reach the Pacific Coast from the main population center of Oregon – Portland. At first, there were river steamers coming downstream from Portland to Astoria. Then, the train to Astoria with a branch line going further south to Gearhart and Seaside. The first road connection finally came in 1915 with the building of the Lower Columbia Highway, today’s US Highway 30.
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As future generals for the Federal Army during the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan are also remembered for their service in the Pacific Northwest during the 1850’s. Another, George Brinton McClellan made a cameo appearance. He led a group tasked with identifying a possible rail route through the Cascades. In addition, they potential were to build a military road across the mountain chain so emigrant wagons could more easily reach the Puget Sound of Washington Territory. This reconnaissance gave McClellan his first extended period of independent command since graduating from West Point with the Class of 1846.
Before George McClellan became the leading Federal general in the early Civil War, he served in the wilds of Washington, surveying for railroad routes.
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My wife, our Corgi and I recently escaped the summer heat of the Willamette Valley for a day at the beach, Cannon Beach to be exact. Home of the annual Corgi Day at the Beach. It was an awesome day made more mystical by swirls of fog lying along the shore. Over 500 Corgis were running up and down through the sands.
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Chester Moores was a member of the first party to complete a loop around Mount Hood in an automobile in one day. They did it as part of an expedition he wrote about in a wonderful article written in the 18 July 1915 edition of The Sunday Oregonian. They spent eleven hours out on the roads, starting with the Columbia River Gorge Highway only completed in parts the year before. Construction of that road in Hood River and Wasco Counties would not be completed for several years. They ended up on earlier roads, much steeper and narrower. He writes of encountering grades of 25 to 30%. The actual Mount Hood Loop would take longer.
Continue readingOne of my first posts covered the hike on Three Corner Rock with my last mountain corgi, Cuillin. Even at 12, Cuillin showed the style, stamina and simple good looks of the corgi in the heights of the Cascade Range of southern Washington State. He lived up to his Gaelic name. Three Corner Rock is high enough to be classified a Munro, even a metric Munro since the peak is 3,550 feet high (1082 meters). For those not familiar with the quaint system of mountain classification in Scotland, Munros are mountains over 3,000 feet (914 meters) and metric Munros are over 3,300 feet (1000 meters).
Of course, the mountains in the Pacific Northwest are higher and more numerous than Caledonia. We call Three Corner Rock, the perfect place for a fire lookout, at least until it moved north to the San Juan Islands.
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Ahh, Dog Mountain. This seven mile, 2800 vertical foot gain hike is one of the most popular in the Columbia River Gorge. I would guess it to be number three after Multnomah Falls and Angels Rest, both on the Oregon side easily accessed from the freeway I-84. Dog Mountain is on the Washington side in between the towns of Stevenson and White Salmon-Bingen with the trailhead right on Washington Highway 14. The hike is a workout, but the views over the eastern sections of the middle Gorge during the wildflower season of mid-spring are what brings the crowds out.
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Driving to the large trailhead at the bottom of Dog Mountain, Washington Highway 14 drives right around the base of another smaller peak with its own form of drama, Wind Mountain. A beautiful cone-shaped peak, Wind has a brother, Shellrock Mountain, on the opposite side of the Columbia River in Oregon. Both mountains are thought to be from the same volcanic intrusion which needed to be cleaved in half by the Columbia River. Unlike Shellrock, Wind Mountain has a trail to the top.
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Hidden away in the Coast Mountains of Coos County is a small state Park preserving two of Oregon’s more spectacular waterfall treasures – Golden and Silver Falls. The two falls are among the highest and most dramatic found west of the Cascades. Hiding at the end of a long road which gets narrower and wilder as you travel back into the mountains, the park is one of Oregon’s lonelier state parks. Drive to the road’s end and magic begins.
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