Beacon Rock State Park - Hadley Trail

The Hadley Trail leaves Beacon Rock State Park's main campground loop and climbs gently for a little over half a mile to a viewpoint above the river. The grade is shallow enough to qualify as ADA-accessible — most parties reach the lookout in twenty minutes — and the path stays under canopy of bigleaf maple and Douglas fir for nearly its full length.

The reward is the view. Beacon Rock itself rises across the highway, an eight-hundred-foot basalt column striped with the trail that climbs its south face. Bonneville Dam stretches across the Columbia downstream, the Oregon shore opposite, and the gorge cuts a clean horizon east. The Little Beacon spur, also ADA-graded, branches a quarter mile in for hikers who want to extend without committing to the full route.

Wildflowers come early in the gorge — trillium and bleeding heart by March, salmonberry in April, oxalis on the forest floor through summer. The trail can be combined with the Hamilton Mountain or Hardy Ridge routes for hikers chasing more elevation, but on its own it works as a quiet alternative to the crowded Beacon Rock summit climb across the road.