St. Cloud Loop Hike

Overview

The St. Cloud Trail #4410 is a very short universal access loop of less than half a mile that meanders around an old apple orchard and picnic area. You can also explore the Columbia River shore here to add to your walk. When water levels are low in summer and fall, you may meander east on the exposed flats and enjoy the late summer riparian bloom. Blackberries are also ripe then! The orchard is the site of the St. Cloud Ranch, which was a summer estate for the Vial family from 1909 to the 1950s. The Forest Service purchased the land here in 1990; part of the former estate is an extensive protected wetland. Since the Northwest Forest Pass is required just to park here, you will find it little used much of the time. There’s a restroom and information sign at the west end of the parking lot. From the trailhead, you can drop into the old apple orchard of Spitzenburg and Newtown-Pippin varieties. Warning signs tell you not to eat the apples since they are infested with maggots. Skirt the east side of the orchard area, passing hawthorns and a blackberry patch, and then take a path down through false indigo and willow scrub to the river bank. Coreopsis and sneezeweed bloom here in late summer/early fall. There’s a trail that leads east across Gable Creek and through the sedge to reach a wide mudflat, which has good footing from July to October. Bright yellow sneezeweed blooms against the willow thickets. You can hop across Indian Mary Creek, where wapato, a Native American staple, blooms in late summer, and head along the mudflat. You might see hundreds of mussel shells here. At some point, you’ll reach the boundary with the Franz Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Turn back at that point, since the refuge is out-of-bounds to the general public. Multnomah Falls is visible across the river and you can see to St. Peter's Dome and Yeon Mountain; Archer Mountain looms behind to the north. Downriver are Skamania Island, Phoca Rock, and Cape Horn. On the return, you'll find that the beach going west is considerably more narr

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