When you drive on Hwy84, you see some prominent points on the other side of the river. From those, Table Mountain and Beacon Rock are probably the easiest to recognize. The mountain that sits right behind Beacon Rock is Hamilton Mountain. In this area there are more than a handful of trails but the one that offers the best views if obviously the one that climbs to the summit of Hamilton. This is not only because you get the views from the top but also because the trail is fully exposed with ample views of the Columbia River Gorge. As with many of my hikes, this was planned knowing that weather up in the mountains was not going to be very favorable for snowshoeing and that the Gorge was going to be drier. I was also expecting to find ice, with the wonderful scenery that goes with it. So we started on a very cold and cloudy day. You’ll notice in the pictures that we made a quick stop along the road to take pictures of the gorge fully immersed in the clouds. Soon after, we were on the trail and it didn’t take too long to realize we needed traction devices to stop ourselves from just sliding off the trail. Soon after, we got to the section of the trail that goes under the power lines and were welcomed by a completely frozen mountainside. I think there’s no better description for a frozen forest than this. Every single branch of every tree was completely covered in a layer of ice. The views towards the Gorge were also impressive as we were already above a layer of clouds. We continued up enjoying the fast moving clouds bellow us and soon reached Hardy Falls and took the detour to visit the Pool of Winds. Then came the uphill. Since we wanted the views, we took the hard route up the follows the open ridge line all the way to the summit. As we were gaining elevation, we started to change from ice to snow to the point that the trail to the false summit or what is also referred as to Little Hamilton, was almost impossible to see. To keep us safe, we decided against taking that route as we would have not known if we were walking on solid ground. Once we got a bit higher, we were able to look back and see the ridgeline to the false summit and got glad we didn’t take that route. Not only the ridge was completely covered in snow/ice but there was a bit of drift on one side. It was still a magnificent sight.
Snow drift on the false summit
From there, there was a short jaunt to the summit which I must say; it’s probably one of the most disappointing summits you can get to. As I said before, the views are great but usually you expect a bare summit with 360 views. Hamilton is not bare so the summit is actually on the side giving you a 120view, the rest is left to your imagination. From there we had two options, go back the way we came, or take the easier route that goes around the back of the mountain. We opted for the second choice which took us thru the ridge that connected the summit with the mountain behind. To do that, we had to go thru deep snow for quite a while which was no easy task but then we got to the saddle that offered ample views of Table Mountain. We connected that to the trail that comes back down from behind and hiked all the way down to the car just as the little light we had was fading out at the end of the day.
You can check the pictures
here
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