Trip type: hike/trail run
Elevation gain: approx. 2,235 feet
Car-to-car time: 2 hours 24 minutes
USGS quads: Bonneville Dam, Carson
In areas: Columbia River Gorge, Southern Washington Cascades
I got into Vancouver around noon and was short on time but wanted to get outside, so I decided to hike up a couple of the local bumps that I'd seen so many times, Wind Mountain and Aldrich Butte.
I followed the driving directions on Summitpost.org to the Wind Mountain trailhead. Despite being an unofficial trail (not on any of my maps), it was a good trail complete with three signs near the top about the indian pits on the summit. It has nice local views from the summit, an excellent short hike. On the way down around 1,150' on the NE side of Wind Mountain I followed a bootpath off of the trail that lead a short way down to an attractive, exposed little butte projecting from the side of the mountain.
After returning to my car I drove over to the road that runs along the NW side of Greenleaf Slough. I parked on the road before it crosses the powerlines and jogged and hiked up the road to the top of Aldrich Butte. The road would be easily mountain biked. The very summit of Aldrich Butte was a little mysterious with its stairway to nowhere and the concrete monolith. It's odd that a fire lookout was built on such a small peak.
References
- Summitpost.org: Wind Mountain
- Lewis and Clark's Columbia River: Aldrich Butte
Travel Times
Car-to-car time: 2 hours 24 minutes- 1 hour 2 minutes driving there from Vancouver (Fischer's Landing) to Wind Mountain trailhead
- 28 minutes ascending from Wind Mountain trailhead to summit of Wind Mountain
- 30 minutes descending from summit of Wind Mountain to Wind Mountain trailhead
- 29 minutes ascending from Aldrich Butte trailhead to summit of Aldrich Butte
- 21 minutes descending from summit of Aldrich Butte to Aldrich Butte trailhead
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