Kelley Point Loop Hike

Overview

The Willamette and Columbia Rivers meet at Kelley Point, and the park's rustling cottonwoods and sandy beaches form idyllic verges to the wide expanses of these two great rivers. Before European settlement, this area was a seasonally flooded sandbar, but the park area was built up by dredgings from the Port of Portland. Hall Jackson Kelley, the Boston teacher for whom the park is named, arrived here in 1834 and talked about building a city at the confluence of the two rivers. He ran afoul of the Hudson's Bay Company and returned to the East Coast, but his fantastical and misleading writings about the area, before and after his arrival, became one of the "inspirations" for those who chose to embark upon the Oregon Trail. As Don Berry states in A Majority of Scoundrels, "Kelley's was one of the higher-pitched voices of Manifest Destiny, and he brought to his chosen task the dedication and passion of the fanatic; and also the fanatic's unwillingness to let facts influence his position." From the South Lot, take a paved path at its southern end that leads into a forest of cottonwoods. At a junction, go left on a paved trail to a daisy meadow in an old walnut orchard along the Columbia Slough - an ideal spot for a bucolic picnic. Then return, and go left on the paved tread leading up the Willamette River. Nettles line the trail here. Paths lead left to the narrow beach. At a junction in an open area, take a bark chip trail down to the beach. Here there will usually be a rather tranquil scene, with a couple of fishermen and Caspian terns plying the waters in the summer. Across the Willamette are the fields of Sauvie Island. Walk along the beach to the pilings at the point, where cormorants and gulls perch for prey. The snowy summit of Mount Saint Helens protrudes above the row of cottonwoods on the Washington side of the Columbia. Turning the point at some wooden buttresses and an old anchor, you can see Mount Hood in the distance across the Friendly Reach. Head inland to the paved path and go left. Keep left under

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