Columbia River Gorge

Horsethief Butte rises out of open grassland at the eastern, driest reach of the Gorge, a low tower of basalt with almost nothing growing on its flanks. That bareness is not accidental. West of here, the Cascades strip the rain out of the marine air moving up the Columbia; by the time weather reaches this stretch, there is little left to fall, and the plants that would otherwise mask the rock — moss, fern, dense conifer duff — simply cannot get a foothold. What is left standing is basalt, laid down in repeated eruptions during the Miocene, when floods of lava spread across this whole region in sheet after sheet. As each flow cooled, it split into the blocky columns and slabs still visible on the butte’s face, and if you look closely at the exposed rock you can pick out where one flow ended and the next began. Between the biggest lava events, rivers had time to move sand and gravel across the surface before it was buried again — traces of that quieter interval show up as paler, looser bands low on the outcrop. Horsethief Butte is a short climb for what it shows: a cross-section of a rhythm that repeated for millions of years, standing in the open instead of hidden under forest.

Stacker Butte tops out the grassy highlands above Columbia Hills State Park, high enough that on a clear day the view runs both up and down the Gorge — a long, open sightline made possible by the same dryness that keeps the local grass short and the rock exposed. The climb crosses bare basalt grassland for most of its length, with almost no tree cover to block the view of the layered cliffs across the river. That layering is the story: this whole stretch of the Gorge sits on a stack of lava flows put down over millions of years, punctuated by shorter stretches when rivers, not eruptions, controlled the surface and left behind beds of sand and gravel. From this height, the pattern reads less like scenery and more like a diagram — pale sedimentary streaks pinched between broader bands of dark basalt, repeating up the walls of the canyon. Wind here is nearly constant, another product of the same rain-shadow dryness, and it has helped keep the summit grassland open rather than letting brush take hold. Stacker Butte rewards patience more than speed: the higher you climb, the more of the Gorge’s layered history comes into view at once.

Signal Hill sits on the drier, southern side of the river, low enough to climb without a full day’s commitment but high enough to put the layered cliffs of the Washington side at eye level rather than overhead. The hill’s own slopes are largely open — bunchgrass and scattered basalt outcrop, with little of the brush and timber that cover the wetter western end of the Gorge. That openness is a direct result of geography: the Cascades to the west catch most of the rain moving in off the Pacific, leaving this stretch of the Gorge to receive only a fraction of it, too little to support the closed forest downstream. What grows here instead roots directly in cracked rock and thin soil. From partway up Signal Hill, the far canyon wall shows the same repeating pattern found across this end of the Gorge: dark basalt in thick bands, each one a separate flood of lava, interrupted here and there by paler streaks where rivers briefly held the ground before the next eruption buried it. The hill is a modest climb, but it puts that pattern in full, unobstructed view — a small rise doing the work of a much longer hike.

McCall Point climbs through open grassland on the Oregon side of the Gorge’s dry eastern reach, ground that supports almost none of the dense forest found closer to Portland. The thin, rocky soil here is exactly what certain wildflowers need. Grasswidow and Columbia desert parsley both push up early, often while the ground is still cool, taking advantage of bare rock and little competition before taller grasses fill in later in the season. Arrowleaf buckwheat holds on through the drier months that follow, rooted straight into cracked basalt where almost nothing else can get purchase. None of these plants would do as well in the shaded, moss-covered soil of the Gorge’s western end — they depend on exactly the openness that the rain shadow creates. The climb itself gains real elevation, with long stretches of exposed slope and little shade, so plan for sun and wind rather than tree cover. Near the top, the grassland gives way to bare rock again, and the view opens across the river to the layered cliffs on the Washington side. McCall Point is as much a lesson in what dry ground supports as it is a viewpoint — the flowers on the way up are the point, not just the scenery at the top.

Wasco Butte rises from the same dry grassland belt as the wildflower slopes nearby, but it carries less foot traffic and fewer signs of a maintained route, so treat any climb here as a cross-country undertaking rather than a marked trail. The reward is the same open, rocky habitat found across this end of the Gorge, without the company. Thin soil over broken basalt supports scattered stands of Oregon oak, a tree built for drought and poor ground that would lose out to conifers anywhere wetter. Between the oaks, low-growing wildflowers root directly into gravel and cracked rock, doing on Wasco Butte’s slopes what they do across the whole dry shoulder of the Gorge: taking advantage of open ground that denser vegetation can never quite close over. The butte’s higher slopes are mostly bare rock and short grass, offering a clear view down toward the river and across to the layered basalt walls on the far side. Because there is little tree cover to break the wind or the sun, this is not a shoulder-season stroll — go prepared for exposure in both directions. Wasco Butte rewards those willing to navigate rather than follow a sign, with a quieter version of the same open, rock-and-wildflower country found at the more visited stops nearby.

Haystack Butte stands near the eastern edge of the Gorge, where the canyon has widened out and the country starts to feel less like a river corridor and more like open range. The rock here is the same layered basalt found throughout the dry end of the Gorge, but with fewer canyon walls close by to frame it, the scale reads differently — long, low ridgelines instead of towering cliffs. That change says something about deep time as much as geography: the flood basalts that built the whole Gorge did not stop at the canyon’s edges, they spread across a much larger stretch of the interior Northwest, and buttes like this one are outliers of the same rock sheets exposed elsewhere in more dramatic cliff faces. Grass and scattered dry-country shrubs cover the lower slopes, thinning out toward bare rock higher up. There is little shelter from sun or wind at any point on the climb, a reminder of just how far this spot sits from the moist, forested country only a day’s drive to the west. Haystack Butte is less a single dramatic viewpoint than a chance to feel the Gorge’s dry country keep going past where most visitors turn back.

Gordon Butte sits at the far eastern edge of the Gorge’s mapped country, past where most established trails give out. No maintained route is guaranteed here, so a visit means route-finding across open range rather than following signs — an undertaking for the well prepared, with a full day set aside and a plan for water and weather, since there is no forest cover anywhere on the approach. What makes the effort worthwhile for this lens is the setting: this is about as dry and open as the Gorge gets, shaped by the same rain-shadow effect that dries out the whole eastern half of the canyon. The basalt underfoot is the same flood-lava rock found throughout the dry end of the Gorge, but here it sits under grass and bare ground with almost no distraction — no waterfall, no dense forest, nothing but rock, sky, and wind. Species that depend on exactly this kind of open, competition-free ground do well on slopes like these. For a visitor who has already spent time on the more accessible buttes closer to the river, Gordon Butte is the place where that same dry, bare-rock story plays out with nobody else around to share it.