Munra Point - May 8

With a week to go before the rescheduled Mt. Hood attempt, I headed out to the Columbia River Gorge on Saturday (5/8) with new friend and Pentaquest member Nick to take on the hike to Munra Point.

The trailhead is located west of Cascade Locks on the Oregon side of river. Considered by some to be among the steepest hikes in the Gorge, Munra Point compresses its 1700 feet of elevation gain into a brutal one mile stretch of unmaintained trail.

We left Portland around 8:30 a.m. with the weather looking great. Since Munra Point isn't an officially sanctioned hike, it lacks a parking lot at the trailhead. We had to park about a mile away and walk along the shoulder of busy I-84 through a construction zone to reach the start. Once we hit the trail (and convinced ourselves we found the right path since it isn't marked), the hiking was great. Steep switchbacks through the woods eventually opened up to sweeping vistas of the river. Although the trail was rudimentary in places, it was obvious previous hikers had shown the route some care and feeding.

Eventually we emerged from the forest and encountered a 40-50 foot rock wall in the way of the route. In the Pentaquest-worthy moment of the day, Nick located a steep but passable line up the middle of the rock face that enabled us to soldier on. We then proceeded up to the top of the ridge and soon reached the "point." A precarious scramble around the base of the point finally brought us to the summit.

To describe the view from the summit as spectacular doesn't quite do it justice. From the point, we had an unobstructed, 360 degree view of the world. With blue skies and clear visibility, we could see Portland to the west, Hamilton and Table Mountains to the north and Bonneville Dam, Bridge of the Gods and Cascade Locks to the east. Although its summit was shrouded in a veil of clouds, the bulk of Mt. Adams was also clearly visible.

Here's a video showing the view from the top:

After eating lunch and taking a ridiculous number of pictures, we began the journey down the mountain. Due to the steepness of the path, we had to travel slowly in a few places. There is no way I would hike this in the rain - it's treacherous enough under ideal conditions. I couldn't imagine hiking down on slippery rocks and a muddy path.

Before too long, we reached I-84 and had a nice chat with a subcontractor painting a wall holding up the freeway as part of a highway improvement project. As we walked the mile back to the car, thunderheads started to build to the east over the Washington Cascades. I was thankful to get back to the Highway Donkey and drive back to Portland.

Overall this hike was easily a nine or ten on my unofficial scale of awesome. The route was challenging and pushed me "to the next level," the views were consistently breathtaking and the trail was largely unpeopled - we didn't see more than five other hikers the entire day.

The wonders of the Gorge never cease to amaze me - I didn't even know about this hike until a week ago. I look forward to trying out other new hikes this season.