Cape Horn viewpoint Columbia Gorge
— the river opening east toward the high country.
Not only on a wall.
“A basalt rampart on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge, with the Nancy Russell Overlook a short walk from a small lot off State Route 14. The full Cape Horn Trail is a loop hike that drops below the highway to Cape Horn Falls, partially closed each winter and spring to protect peregrines nesting on the cliffs below. Looking east the river bends toward the Cascades; Hamilton Mountain stands across the water on the Oregon side, with the white cone of Mount Hood appearing in the gap on a clear day. Wind, often, and warm late-afternoon light on the rock.
Cape Horn viewpoint Columbia Gorge, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Cape Horn is a basalt cliff on the north (Washington) wall of the Columbia River Gorge, in Skamania County a short drive east of Vancouver. The cliff face rises well over a thousand feet above the river. The Nancy Russell Overlook, named for the founder of the Friends of the Columbia Gorge who led the protection effort that brought these cliffs into public hands, is a short walk from a small lot off State Route 14, the Lewis and Clark Highway. The full Cape Horn Trail is a 7-mile loop maintained by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest that drops below the highway to Cape Horn Falls.
The cliff is Columbia River Basalt, the flood-basalt formation that covered most of eastern Washington, northern Oregon, and parts of Idaho between roughly 17 and 6 million years ago. The Grande Ronde Basalt flows that make up most of the gorge walls are among the largest individual lava flows on Earth, each one cooling into the columnar jointing you see in cross-section at Cape Horn. The Missoula floods, at the end of the last ice age, scoured the gorge down to its present width; the cape is one of the basalt promontories that was left standing after the water dropped.
The lower portion of the Cape Horn Trail closes annually from February 1 to July 15 to protect a peregrine falcon nesting site on the cliffs below. The upper section and the Nancy Russell Overlook remain open in every season. The small parking area off State Route 14 fills on summer weekends; arriving early or going on a weekday is the practical move. Wind through the gorge is constant and often strong, since Cape Horn sits near the western, constricted end where the river squeezes through the basalt walls and the air moves with it. Dress for it, even in August.