Beacon Rock
Beacon Rock State Park, WA-14
North Bonneville, WA
A switchback trail spirals up the sheer face of an ancient volcano's core to one of the great views of the Columbia River Gorge.
Beacon Rock is an 848-foot tower of basalt standing alone on the north bank of the Columbia River, one of the largest freestanding monoliths on the continent. What makes it more than a landmark to photograph is the trail: a mile of paved switchbacks, more than fifty of them, bolted and bridged onto the sheer face so that anyone reasonably fit can walk to the very top.
The rock is the hard inner core of a volcano whose softer outer cone was stripped away, first by erosion and then, dramatically, by the Ice Age floods that scoured this whole gorge. Lewis and Clark noted it on their way to the sea, and a century later one determined man spent three years and his own money carving the path that still carries visitors to the summit today.
What Guests Love
- Climbing the mile of paved switchbacks bolted to the sheer rock face, with the river opening up below at every turn
- The summit view straight down the Columbia River Gorge in both directions
- The audacity of the hand-built trail, with its bridges and railings clinging to a vertical wall
- A short, punchy hike that delivers a huge payoff for the distance
Worth Knowing
- The trail is only about a mile up but it gains roughly six hundred feet quickly, with long drop-offs along the railings, so it is not for anyone uneasy with heights
- There is no shade on the face and the metal railings bake in summer, so go early or bring water
- A Washington Discover Pass is required to park
- In ice or heavy rain the switchbacks get slick, and the trail can close in winter storms
Details
North Bonneville, WA
Learn about Beacon Rock
The core of a volcano
Beacon Rock is what geologists call a volcanic plug. Tens of thousands of years ago molten rock hardened inside the throat of a volcano, and over time the looser ash and rock of the outer cone wore away, leaving only the dense central pillar standing.
The finishing work was done by water. During the last Ice Age, a series of catastrophic floods roared down the Columbia when ice dams holding back glacial Lake Missoula gave way in Montana. Walls of water hundreds of feet deep swept through the gorge, scraping it clean and exposing the bare rock you see today. Beacon Rock is one of the tough survivors of that scouring.
It stands about 848 feet above the river, and because the surrounding land is low, it reads as even taller. Lewis and Clark measured a tidal rise and fall in the river here in 1805, the first place they noticed the ocean's pull, so the rock marks the rough upstream edge of the tides on the Columbia.
The trail Henry Biddle built
For a while the rock's future was grim. In the early 1900s there were plans to blast it apart for stone to build river jetties, which would have erased it entirely. A man named Henry Biddle bought Beacon Rock in 1915 specifically to save it, and then set out to make it climbable.
From 1915 to 1918 Biddle and his crew built the trail that is still in use, a remarkable piece of hand engineering with more than fifty switchbacks, wooden bridges, and railings pinned to a nearly vertical wall. His family later offered the rock to Washington as a state park, and after some back and forth it was accepted, so the whole thing is preserved today because one person refused to let it be quarried away.
A gorge that people have traveled for thousands of years
Long before it had a trail, this stretch of the river was a highway and a gathering place for Native peoples, including Chinookan-speaking communities of the lower Columbia. The gorge was one of the great trade corridors of North America, its rapids and falls famous fishing sites where people met, traded, and fished the salmon runs for generations.
The Corps of Discovery passed the rock in the fall of 1805 and again in 1806, recording it in their journals. The name has drifted a little over the years, but Beacon Rock stuck. Today the monolith sits inside the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, a landscape managed to keep its dramatic character intact.
Wildlife and the wider park
Watch the cliffs for raptors, since the rock's ledges make good perches and nest sites, and peregrine falcons have used the gorge walls. The river below draws waterfowl, and bald eagles work this stretch of the Columbia, especially in winter.
Beacon Rock State Park is much bigger than the monolith itself, with miles of trails climbing into the forested hills behind it, including routes to Hamilton Mountain and its waterfalls. So the rock is often just the start of a longer day on foot.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near North Bonneville
Bonneville Lock and Dam
About 4 miles east
A Depression-era dam on the Columbia with a visitor center and an underwater window into the fish ladder, where you can watch salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon climb past.
Hamilton Mountain
In Beacon Rock State Park
A longer, steeper hike from the same park that climbs past Rodney and Hardy Falls to a ridge with sweeping gorge views.
Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center
About 8 miles east, in Stevenson
A museum telling the geologic and human story of the gorge, from the Ice Age floods to the fishing peoples to the steamboat and railroad era.
Multnomah Falls
About 10 miles southwest, across the river in Oregon
Oregon's tallest waterfall, a 620-foot two-tier drop with a historic footbridge, reached via the Historic Columbia River Highway.