Steamboat Rock — Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024

First, the warning: to ascend Steamboat Rock, you have to scramble up a steep slope covered with loose rock (which at this time of year is also wet and extra slippery). Coming back down that scramble is even harder. It requires sturdy shoes, good balance, and strong knees. Poles are a good idea, too. This tough section is a very small fraction of the hike, but there’s no way around it.

Once you make it past that one tough part (and I was well prepared thanks to previous trip reporters), the reward is a visit to what seems like a world in the clouds, cut off from the lower altitudes. The weather today enhanced that feeling, with patches of fog drifting over the glassy-smooth lake.

I’ve been planning this for a while. Since I live far away, I stayed overnight in a cabin at the State Park (thanks for this idea, hikingwithlittledogs!) which allowed me to hit the trail as soon as it got light, and to take my time. I hiked every trail available, totaling about 8 miles and 1000 feet of climb

From some angles, Steamboat Rock looks like a flat-topped monolith (or a big ship, hence the name), but it does have some interesting topography, including a fairly deep valley that separates the southern 20% or so from the rest. I came intending to hike every trail available, and started with the area south of the valley (a left turn at the top of the scramble), where there’s an out-and-back that stays fairly close to the cliffs. There, as on the rest of the Rock, deer tracks and scat are everywhere. And deer in the flesh, too.

On the main plateau there’s a trail that goes all the way around the periphery, as well as one that follows a high ridge in the middle. The peripheral trail is where you get the most spectacular views of the surroundings, and the most nerve-wracking proximity to sheer 600-foot cliffs. The central ridge trail is where I got the most “different world” feeling, because the area is large enough that you lose the sense of its boundaries or the surrounding terrain. Banks Lake was no longer visible. It just seemed like a completely different place from where I started. It contains a large plain where I saw a group of about 30 deer grazing.

To complete my survey, I also hiked a trail along the floor of the valley that separates the southern section from the rest. I wouldn’t have known it was there except that it shows up on the GaiaGPS map. It clearly doesn’t get much use and is easy to lose, but it’s there…it leads out to another flat area that’s popular with deer, and is an impressive valley in its own right, all the more so because it is part of this amazing rock island!

Altogether I spent 6 hours on the rock, and I would gladly do it again.