Miles: 7 mile loop
Elevation Gain/Highest: 1145ft/1289ft
Map: Green Trails Columbia River Gorge West No 428S
Favorite Eats After Hike: Crush Cider, Walking Man Brewery, Backwoods Brewery, Thunder Island Brewing, Cascade Locks Ale House, Farm Stand Natural Foods, Dick’s Primal Burger, Back To Eden Bakery, or just Pack A Cooler. You can learn more about these places in my Must Hike Must Eat Eating Out Guide.
Find out current conditions and as always, practice Leave No Trace. Pretty please.
Hike details:
The Cape Horn Loop Trail rests along the Columbia River Gorge offering expansive views of the wide body of water and surrounding landscape. Starting from the Skamania County Public Transit Park and Ride, you have two choices for which direction you would like to do your loop.
You can head west across Salmon Falls St. and take the trail up and into the open forest to viewpoints overlooking the gorge from a series of ledges. After about 2 miles, the trail drops down and under SR14 to walk parallel to the Columbia River with more viewpoints before finishing on a country road back to the parking lot.
Or you can cross SR 14 and head down Cape Horn St along that country road lined with rural homes to meet up with the trail before it reaches Cape Horn Landing at the water’s edge. From here you head up over scree past a waterfall to a manmade overlook with seats. The trail links by taking a tunnel under SR 14 and up to cross Rim Drive and the Cape Horn Upper Trailhead before climbing up on the forest ledges and back to the parking lot.
My trip report:
11/9/2019
So where do two hikers recovering from foot injuries go to “get back out there”? Why they go do the whole Cape Horn Loop, of course…
This was my first time on the trail but my friend who lives in Ridgefield has done the loop clockwise before. We opted for counterclockwise because there was a threat of rain and we wanted to do the upper lookouts before that might happen. Luckily, rain never materialized for us.
Arriving at the park and ride, we snagged the last parking spot, yay! It was not super busy but at least a few cars were circling. We had been a little worried with our late start we’d be out of luck but the grey skies must have kept a few hikers home.
The trail was nice and dry, plenty of crunchy leaves. We stopped at every lookout except one down by the water, each one had a different perspective of the Columbia Gorge below. Mt. Hood was obscured to the south but we could see the expanse of the river. The waterfalls were merely trickles over the basalt rock but I loved the moss covered scree field below the peregrine nesting areas.
We were the slowest folks on the trail today, taking about 4.5 hours to do the 7 mile loop. I do think quite a few folks hiked in from various parking spots/pullouts around the loop and just did in and outs. The road walk at the end was brutal on the feet, I would probably choose to go the other direction next time. I’d love to go in the late summer, there were so many blackberry vines it must make for good picking!
Directions: The trailhead is located at the Skamania County Public Transit Park and Ride is about 40 minutes from downtown Vancouver. Take State Route 14 east though Camas and Washougal from I-205. You will pass an overlook marked for Cape Horn first. Soon after, look for the park and ride on the left side of the road after milepost 26. No parking pass is needed, privy available.
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