Cape Horn trail is a marvelous hiking trail along Columbia gorge. This hiking trail is on the North Washington side of the gorge instead of Oregon. This trail is relative new compared to other trails. The trail is essentially a loop that goes up on the cliff side and then comes back down. It is around 8 miles long with 1300 feet elevation gain. So it is relatively an easier hiking trail.
The trail head of Cape Horn trail is at the intersection of highway 14 and Salmon Road in Washington state. It is about 30 minutes drive from Portland. We got to the trail head around 9am in the morning to avoid the crowd and the parking lot is almost full. If the parking lot is full, there are also options to park on the side of the road. At the start of the hiking trail, the trail branches off into 2 paths. 1 path that heads up first and the other heads down. As I mentioned before, the trail is a loop so it doesn't really matter which way to go first. We chose to take the upper trail first so that we can get to see the gorgeous view of Columbia Gorge first. The trail starts to climb instantly but it is not steep. The only thing to be cautious on is that the trail is quite wet and we had to be more careful not to slip. After 30 minutes, we arrived at the first view point at Pioneer Point. It provides a perfect view on the Columbia Gorge! Some elderly senior people actually just head back down after they got to Pioneer Point.
We continued to hike for another hour and eventually got out of the forest and got onto the road. The trail actually crosses an open country road and goes through the farm land. This part is quite easy to walk on since it is just flat and straight. After walking on the country road for about 20 minutes, the trail turns back in into the forest.
The next view point that we got to is Nancy Russel Overlook. This is a great resting place as there are carved stones to sit on and also has a gorgeous view on Columbia Gorge. This is also where we had our lunch. After resting for 30 minutes, we continued to hike on the trail and now the trail is heading downwards to the cliff side. Eventually we got to the underpass that goes under highway 14. This also marks the mid point of this trail and the trail beyond this point will be the lower Cape Horn trail.
While we were hiking on the lower Cape Horn trail, we noticed that there are less people here. In addition, we noticed that there are many snakes on the lower Cape Horn trail. These snakes are small snakes and just snailed away from us. So you don't have to worry when you see them.
Another thing that I found is that lower Cape Horn trail seems to be more difficult to hike. There are sections that are wet due to the water stream running across the trail. So be more cautious here. Moreover, there are sections where we were walking on the jagged rocks. So if you bring dogs with you, make sure they don't hurt their paws! This rocky trail part is also not suitable for senior people to walk on since it is very easy to trip over these rocks!
The last section of Cape Horn trail is very easy. The trail simply turns into a paved Cape Horn Road. It is a very flat road. This section took us about 30 minutes to complete and it was quite boring because there is nothing to see. Then near the end, we went through the underpass to go under highway 14 again and got back to the trail head to complete the Cape Horn loop.
Overall, it was a great trail! I love the trails that make a loop! One thing to be aware of is that between February and July of every year, part of the trail is closed due to Falcon Closure. So hiking the whole trail loop is not possible. The best time to hike this trail would be in August and September.
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