Table Rock, May 23rd

This is not to be confused with Table Mountain in the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge (as most people do). Table Rock is a columnar basalt formation near Molalla in the Table Rock wilderness. Interestingly enough, this wilderness is less than an hour drive from Portland and still, it can offer some really nice views of the central cascades. Getting there is rather easy although the last portion is a dirt road that ends near “small slide”, a slide that blocked the service road and was never repaired. After parking there and passing around the slide, we continued on what’s left of the old forest road until we found a post indicating the actual trail head. Form there; we got immersed in the woods doing a steady climb with snow patches around us. Shortly afterwards, we got to the first rock formations and some slippery snow fields. Chris took the chance here to boulder a bit. Right after passing, we found a small detour that allowed us to climb to the top of the same rock formation for our first view of the valley, Mt Hood towards the north and Mt Jefferson towards the east. We also had our first glimpse at the summit of Table Rock. We then got back to the trail and after crossing a deep forested area; we came to an opening right in front of the wall and an immense snowfield that we had to go around to continue our hike towards the top. In a coupe of pictures you’ll get a clear idea at the size of the snow field and the whole rock formation. It was quite a view. After maneuvering through the snow field, which was no easy task considering there was loose rock underneath, we were able to get back on the trail and continue walking around the base of Table Rock. Shortly after we found the trail to the summit but after a couple hundred yards we lost complete track of it due to the snow. We ended up bushwhacking all the way to the ridge and then to the top of the rock. Needless to say, once you reach the top at over 4800’ the views are just incredible. Being a bright sunny day and past noon, the summit became the perfect spot for lunch. After resting a bit, we went down and actually were able to find the trail we lost on the way up making the whole thing a lot easier. From that point on, the idea was to continue to Rooster Rock, columnar basalt further on the same trail but after some more bushwhacking and scrambling over snow covered rocks, we decided to take a second break and then head back to the cars.