Starvation Ridge and Falls loop

The Starvation Ridge trail was me and my girlfriend's introduction to the "wilder" side of the Columbia Gorge, the part for the more serious hikers, and it was largely an accident.

Up until this hike, we had only done well known, well trafficked hikes such as the Wahkeena-Mult loop, Angels rest, Devils Rest, Most of the waterfall hikes, and Beacon Rock. We were looking into new territory and getting bolder. But we thought we were just taking a short waterfall loop. Then we made a mistake.

Both sources I read on Starvation Ridge have you parking, looking at Starvation creek falls, then walking along the freeway till you do a harsh climb, then leveling out and slowly descending on a loop past some waterfalls. Both sources forgot to mention the junction with Starvation Ridge.

We of course took the wrong trail because the junction made me second guess my memory of the trail descriptions.

So you park, wander up a tiny path to look at Starvation Creek falls. Yay! there is a plaque describing why it's called that and an old wagon road. You backtrack to the lot, then head along the freeway until a trail splits off to the left. The next quarter mile is one of the steepest sections I've hiked to this day, it's brutal. But then you reach the top in short order and see a junction. One side seems to go down. The other goes up. The sign labels the right path as towards Mt Defiance, the left as Starvation Ridge. Having never heard of Starvation Ridge, I thought that was what we were supposed to do. I knew Mt. Defiance wasn't our goal. So we took the left path. I expected a ridge walk, what you get is a ridge climb. You take switchback after switchback up, up, up under the powerlines to the ridge crest, were admittedly you get a great view of Dog Mtn. (Which I didn't know was Dog Mountain at the time).

Facing Wind and Shellrock Mtns to the west from the exposed top of the switchbacks on Starvation Ridge

I CAN SEE MY CAR FROM THOUSANDS OF FEET

Keeley with Dog Mountain looming across the river

Facing northeast

The river

View along the switchbacks up Starvation Ridge

Then we expected the trail to level out along the spine of the ridge. It didn't. We must have walked an extra mile, mostly up, before deciding that things were most certainly wrong. We were only supposed to gain maybe 1000 feet in elevation, at this point we'd easily done 2. So we sat down, waited for our phones to get a signal, then did as much research as we could. We figured out the sign that pointed towards Mt. Defiance was the right way, our loop was just part of the Defiance trail. So we walked back through the meadows and the power lines to the junction. You go down from the junction, climb up another hill to a view, hike down an exposed slope, turn a corner down the other route to Mt. Defiance, and see some cute waterfalls, our original goal.

Lancaster falls

Lancaster Falls

From behind Cabin Creek falls

It was a mistake, but Starvation Ridge gave us a fun taste of what could be if we were more adventurous, and we've laughed about our 1200 foot climb mistake ever since, and until this year it was basically the steepest hike we'd completed. One of these days I might go back and get all the way to Warren Lake.