Email This   Larger Font      Print This   Smaller Font Advertisement   TROY WAYRYNEN/The Columbian Dan Huntington hikes at the top of Table Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge north of North Bonneville.

Thursday, July 17, 2008
By ALLEN THOMAS Columbian Staff Writer

NORTH BONNEVILLE — The final mile up Heartbreak Ridge Trail to the summit of Table Mountain is among the steepest and most grueling in the Northwest.

And the views at the top of Table Mountain — hanging meadows of dazzling wildflowers, sheer vertical cliffs and sweeping panoramas — are among the most scenic in the Northwest.

“This is truly one of the top spots in the Columbia Gorge,’’ said Don Nelsen, a Vancouver hiker who logs about 1,000 miles annually. “This is such a magnificent, expansive view. But you have to earn it.’’

Indeed.

Most official maps show the route to the top of 3,417-foot elevation Table Mountain beginning at the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail parking lot on state Highway 14 at Bonneville Dam.

But starting at the dam adds several miles of approach hike before arriving at the final loop to the summit. Those additional miles make reaching the top of Table Mountain — and then returning — too long and hard a trip for most hikers.

Starting at a parking spot on the west side of Bonneville Hot Springs Resort, and following a combination of trails and roads, the round trip to the top of Table Mountain and back can be cut to 8.7 miles.

While 8.7 miles sound like a reasonable distance, don’t underestimate the route.

The trip includes a stretch of 700 vertical feet in 0.35 miles, that’s a 26 degree grade on average and 38 degrees in places. It also includes a scramble of 290 vertical feet in a few hundred yards of climbing on a talus slope.

Nelsen, a technical representative for an Ohio-based industrial abrasives company, first hiked to the summit of Table Mountain in 1985.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than three or four people at the top at one time, even on weekends,’’ he said.

Table Mountain is at the heart of the Table Mountain Natural Resources Conservation Area, managed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

Table Mountain and the surrounding lands became an NRCA in 1991, when the Legislature authorized buying 2,197 acres of state trust lands to be transferred into conservation status. An additional 640 acres were bought in 1996 and 1997 to bring the NRCA to its current size of 2,837 acres.

Carlo Abbruzzese, Pacific Cascade region natural areas manager for the DNR, said his agency has been working for about five years relocating sections of trail on Table Mountain outside sensitive meadows.

“It’s a beautiful, rugged trail,’’ he said. “It’s not a beginner’s trail. A lot of the long-time users like the steep, rugged nature. We tried not to deviate too much from the original trail.’’

There are still some finishing touches needed, he said.

Kiosks are being built at the two locations where the loop to the summit connects with the Pacific Crest trail. More marker posts are needed in the talus slope portion, signs need to be installed at trail junctions, a large map needs to be added to the kiosks, and paper maps should be available there, too, he said.

“I really like that area,’’ Abbruzzese said. “You can see five volcanoes, look out over the Columbia River and see the Bonneville Landslide.’’


Table Mountain has a fascinating geological history, as the south side has been sliding toward the Columbia River for millennium.

Scientists differ on the details, but debris from the Bonneville Landslide initially crossed and dammed the Columbia River, creating a lake that stretched as far as 70 miles east, to the present-day John Day River mouth. This temporary land bridge is thought to have given rise to the Bridge of the Gods legend of native Americans.

The debris dam apparently was porous enough to allow much of the Columbia flow to pass. Eventually, the river rose high enough to wash through the southern side of the landside, creating a new channel nearly a mile south.

The exact cause and date of the landslide is still in question. One theory is that a large earthquake triggered the slide. It is likely there were many processes acting at different times and in different places that led to the slides, according to the Department of Natural Resources’ 2007 Table Mountain management plan.

Based on tree ring studies, it is believed the Bonneville landslide took place during the mid-1400s. Other evidence suggests it was triggered by an earthquake in 1700.

Greenleaf, Cedar, and Hamilton creeks drain the slopes of Table Mountain. They look almost untouched, and yet that’s far from reality.

The area burned in 1902 and again in 1929, Nelsen said.

Logging roads and railroads laced the area during the first half of the 1900s to get the timber off the slopes.

Nelsen has bushwhacked the area extensively and found piece of rail, spikes, abandoned steam engines and lots of cable.

He located more than 1,000 feet of 2-inch-thick cable in Greenleaf Basin to the northeast of Table Mountain.

“All these ridges and valleys on both sides of the Gorge have such tremendous history, both native American and from the logging period,’’ he said.

Despite it all, the area is spectacular today.

“Even after European settlement, extensive logging, road building and catastrophic forest fires, the area has returned to as pristine a condition as ever,’’ Nelsen said. “The earth will heal itself in an amazingly short time — it just needs a breather now and then.’’