Beacon Rock State Park

Beacon Rock: The Rock That Refused to Fall

23 stops· 38 min· 7.2 mi

An eight-hundred-foot core of an ancient volcano standing guard over the Columbia River Gorge — and one of the most remarkable trails in America clinging to its sheer face. Ranger Quinn walks and drives you through Beacon Rock State Park on Washington's WA-14: the great monolith Lewis and Clark named in 1805, the man who bought it to save it from the dynamite, and the impossible switchback catwalk he carved up its cliffs by hand. You'll climb Beacon Rock itself — fifty-two switchbacks and twenty-two bridges to a summit with the whole gorge at your feet — and cross the highway to walk into a mossy side-canyon to the Pool of the Winds, where a waterfall roars through a slot in the rock and blows mist back in your face. Ranger Boone Merrick rides along with the tales: the crews who nearly blew the rock to gravel, Henry Biddle's three-year obsession, and the old gorge legend of the Bridge of the Gods. Bring good shoes and a Discover Pass.