Beacon Rock Park

Easy (to Beacon Rock)

1.8 miles round trip

600 feet elevation gain

Open all year


Easy (to Rodney Falls)

2.2 miles round trip

600 feet elevation gain


Difficult (to Hamilton Mountain)

7.6-mile loop

2000 feet elevation gain

Beacon Rock State Park boasts two of the Columbia Gorge’s most famous and popular trails: a switchbacking path up Beacon Rock’s 848-foot-tall block of basalt, and a longer trail that passes beautiful Rodney Falls before climbing steeply to cliff-edge viewpoints on Hamilton Mountain.


Lewis and Clark named Beacon Rock in 1805 while paddling past its cliffs. In 1915 a man named Henry Biddle bought the rock and arduously constructed a well-graded trail to the top, incorporating 47 switchbacks and dozens of railed catwalk bridges. When the Army Corps of Engineers suggested the monolith be blown up for use as a jetty at the mouth of the Columbia, Biddle’s family tried to make the area a state park. At first Washington refused the gift. But that decision quickly changed when Oregon offered to accept.

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The viewpoints on the bare …

This chapter taken from the book 100 Hikes/Travel Guide: Northwest Oregon & Southwest Washington.