Beacon Rock State Park - Hamilton Mountain — Saturday, Jul. 3, 2021

Hiked Saturday morning (around 10:30 am) on July 3rd. Park rangers directing traffic and checking for Discover Pass - made it with plenty of space in the overflow lot then wandered back down to the start of the hike. Hiked Hamilton Mountain, past the falls, onto Hamilton Mountain trail, then circled back on the cutoff, equestrian trail, and hardy spring trail. Took about 3 hours, a little steep up (and slow ish) but easy on the way down. Trail was not too busy at all, even with the main lot full.

Worth it to hike up to Rodney falls platform! So cool! Loved all the views of the Columbia River, so many viewpoints!

Trail was mostly well maintained and easy to navigate but I was happy to have Gaia map to confirm since this was my first time. Normally I wear hiking boots but was wearing old running tennis shoes and I was ok (probably would be better in hiking shoes!). We saw some almost ripe berries, and saw black bear poop and then a small black bear on the hardy spring trail. It was right before we connected back to the main trail, a couple hikers and a dog came by pretty quickly after it ran down the hill and didn’t see it.