Hill Walk 17

[motorharp]

I really enjoyed this walk! Or, really more of a hike. It took us on and out and back up and down Rocky Butte, which I had never been to before. We also took a spin around the Grotto, and this was the first time I'd been to the top*.

Both the weather and the views from both tops were gorgeous!

Rocky Butte is a 613 ft high Boring Lava dome. It is irregularly shaped due to being slammed into by the Missoula Floods thousands of years ago, as well as quarrying. The eddies from the flood going around the side of the butte carved out Alameda ridge!

There is a park at the top - the Joseph Wood Hill Park - that was a WPA project along with the roads leading up the butte to it.  The park is surrounded by parapet walls, bastions, balustrades, and a sweeping staircase made completely out of the quarried stone. The road was mostly hand-graded, and the retaining walls - some 40ft/12m high - and more balustrades, were also hand-built from the stone.

It was finished in 1939 and was the second most expensive WPA project in Oregon.

Both the park and the roadway have achieved National Historic Landmark status.

The view from the top is breath-taking. You can see several mountains on a clear day. The pic above is of Mt. Hood to the east-ish. We could also see Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Tabor.  It was pretty hazy, and you can see there was a layer of clouds, so we couldn't see anything else pointed out on the marker listing everything.

In the middle of the park is an old airway beacon. It always looked to me like just another radio tower, but was built in 1931 to help pilots navigate through the Columbia River Gorge and has a rotating light on the top. Pilots used to navigate by looking out the cockpit and following roadmaps. When the postal service decided they needed to be able to transport airmail overnight, a system of lights was constructed in the 1920s. The light on Rocky Butte was decommissioned in the 1960s, but is still lit and with a dimmer light.

There are no "official" trails, only social ones, steep cliffs, and a lot of illegal campers. This walk had the most broken glass on it of any I've been on so far. I'm glad I had a friend to go with me.

On a side trail, we came across a banana slug almost as long as my foot, probably about 8in/24cm. Ew. You do not want to step on these guys in your bare feet. Bleh.

We also came a little too close to this guy or gal and unfortunately frightened them.  It's a tiny garter snake! It's head was about 1/2in/1.3cm wide. So cute!

Rocky Butte is right next to a very busy interstate, and L and I were wondering how it deals with all that vibration coming through the ground, as I was having trouble hearing over the noise.

And that's actually the only thing I'd change about this hike if I could - the noise.

*The elevator ride to the top cost $3 in 2005 (when the book was published) and now costs $8.

Comments

[gorthx]

When you said "pilots navigate through the Columbia River Gorge" I thought you meant barge pilots. Made the rest of the sentence really interesting ;)

I did some digging and found out that the stone from Rocky Butte was used to build Rocky Butte Jail (torn down in the 80s) which was where the Gateway Green bike park is now.

[motorharp]

It was torn down because the noise from 205 was "deemed inhumane" for the prisoners and guards.

And apparently the stone from the torn-down jail has been used to repair the Historic Columbia River Highway!