Angels Rest-Devils Rest Loop

The lollipop loop from Angels Rest to Devils Rest threads two volcanic outliers of the Boring Lava Field at the western end of the Columbia River Gorge. Angels Rest is an andesite lava flow off Larch Mountain, jutting 1,500 feet above the Columbia. Devils Rest sits 900 feet higher but offers no view from its mossy rock summit, only a few clifftop perches looking east. The hike between them passes through ground worked over by the 1991 Multnomah Falls Fire and the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, with much of the descent following user-maintained unofficial trails that escaped the larger blaze.

From the Bridal Veil interchange parking, the trail climbs through Douglas-fir scarred at the base by the 2017 fire, with vine maple, thimbleberry, and patches of poison oak in the understory. A clifftop viewpoint drops to 150-foot Coopey Falls and the Franciscan Sisters' property below. After crossing Coopey Creek, the trail switchbacks repeatedly up an open, brushy slope recovering from two fires, with views opening to Silver Star Mountain, Larch Mountain, and the Washington Gorge. The Angels Rest promontory itself is a scramble across layered platy andesite — Sand Island, downtown Portland, Cape Horn, Hamilton Mountain, and Beacon Rock all lay out from this point.

The loop continues east on Trail #415, dipping into the Dalton Creek bowl through Oregon grape and bracken, then climbing past an intact grove of old-growth Douglas-fir, hemlock, and western red-cedar. The route works back via Wahkeena Spring, Foxglove Way, and unofficial connector trails to close the lollipop. The east wind on Angels Rest can be extremely fierce on fall and winter days. Watch for poison oak throughout, and stay back from the loose andesite at the summit edge — the rock breaks off readily.