Beacon Rock

I have wanted to hike to the top of Beacon Rock ever since we stopped to have lunch there on Walt and Dena’s boat about 8 years ago. Today we finally did it!

Not only was it the first official day of Spring Break but it was 71 degrees! Much too beautiful a day to waste it indoors. So we drove south and hiked up the rock. It is a good thing it was a warm sunny day because it was WINDY! REALLY WINDY!

Thankfully, the wind died down quite a bit as we were protected from the wind by the rock for most of the first part (and last part) of the hike.

All the little old details on the trail were pretty cool, too.

  We paused quite a bit to take pictures. It was hard not to…

Looking west down the gorge

Then we started to really switchback up the rock…

   

Looking east up the gorge

When we rounded this corner, the wind picked up again…

  more switchbacks

 

even more switchbacks

Almost to the top…

Then we climbed one staircase to the very top of the rock…

It’s much faster going down. Especially when you are hungry for lunch…

It really isn’t nearly as bad as it looks… :o)

Now that we have our Discovery Pass for 2014, I wonder where we’ll go next???