2 min
Overview
You can do this exploration of a publicly-owned Columbia River island only in the late summer or early fall when river levels have fallen low enough for you to wade the crossing between Hamilton Island and Ives Island. This loop is a worthy add-on to the Strawberry Island Loop Hike, or it can be done as a family outing all on its own. Ives Island, along with Hamilton Island just upriver and Pierce Island just downriver, is a remnant of the Bonneville Landslide, the massive slope collapse that exposed the innards of Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak and dammed the Columbia River, giving rise to the legend of the Bridge of the Gods. The jury is still out on when the landslide actually occurred: relatively recently, to be sure, since it figures in native lore: some studies link the slide to the last great Cascadia earthquake in 1700; more recent reviews suggest a date around 1450. Walking around the island affords magnificent vistas to the track of the slide from the faces of Table Mountain and the Red Bluffs below Greenleaf Peak. You'll get a vista of other Washington Gorge prominences as well: Archer Mountain, Beacon Rock, Little Beacon Rock, Hardy Ridge, Hamilton Mountain, Birkenfeld Mountain, South Birkenfeld Mountain, Cedar Mountain, Aldrich Butte, and Sacaquawea and Papoose Rocks. There's a human history on Ives Island as well. At low water, you can visit or view the remains of four fishwheels from the late 19th/early 20th century. The first industrial-scale fishwheel on the river was constructed by William J. McCord, Frank Warren, and William Sargent Ladd in 1882 on Bradford Island. These contraptions scooped tons of migrating salmon out of the river. Lines of lead and brace pilings show how the fish were channeled towards the wheel. Most of the wheels belonged to canneries and, around the beginning of the 20th century, the haul was so bountiful that canned salmon became the cheap meal of choice for the laboring class. The wheels, and a subsequent plague of unregulated industrial-strength gill netting, sev
Trail Stats
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Photos
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500px-IvesIslandMap
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250px-Pierce_Island_and_Beacon_Rock_from_Ives_Island
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