Labor Day

After going in circles most of the holiday weekend trying to figure out where to hike, I decided to just go back to somewhere I'd been earlier this year, Beacon Rock State Park. Initially, I was going to hike on a different trail there--but the intial uphill stretches made me feel like taking it a little more slowly and I ended up hiking further to the saddle of Hamilton Mountain, where I'd been earlier. It's one of those hikes that is allegedly difficult, but you see old people and little kids all over it. I went a different way this time, longer, but more gradual. There's a great portion called Don's Cutoff that I took--I'd done it previously but only downhill. It was tougher uphill, lots of switchbacks but it beat the loose gravel of the main trail I'd done months before. I enjoyed the signs of fall.

The best part was not encountering anyone for the first 90 minutes, until I made it to the actual saddle/summit area. Even then, there were only a few there [though they were loud.] The Saddle is a favorite spot, you can see so much.

That's Bonneville Dam below. Me being me, I decided to go ahead and hike another half hour to the actual summit, which was harder than I remembered [because I was going the other direction last time.] But I was happy I did even though it meant more people. It's so funny when you get to the goal of a hike like that, you want to stay up there forever because you went through so much to get there, often hours of exertion, but usually you end up leaving after 10-15 minutes. I went back down the way I came. Was pretty beat the last couple of miles. It was almost 9 miles total. I arrived around 8 AM and finished a little after noon. By then, the roads were a madhouse and I made the mistake of trying to get something to eat....all the places were packed and it took forever. I was lucky to be able to make a left turn to get back to Portland. Will probably take it easy the next few weeks, maybe go on a low-impact nature hike. Not much wildlife at this one.