After hiking up to Dalles Mountain Ranch in Columbia Hills State Park, we decided to stop and do the trails at Horsethief Butte nearby.
This is a 2 mile hike with 250 ft of elevation gain.
View of Horsethief Butte from the north.
One trail goes around on the west side to a viewpoint overlooking the Columbia River:
View of Horsethief Butte from the south side along the river viewpoint
We took the easier interior trail up in and on the butte.
There are lots of social trails up here:
There were balsamroot in bloom:
Interesting cracks in the rocks
and we watched raptors soaring above and below us.
We found a couple of fading petroglyphs.
Some of the wildflowers we saw in bloom here today:
We decided to drive over to Horsethief Butte in Columbia Hills State Park to take a look around. North side of Horsethief Butte.
We walked around to the other side of the butte, view to the west with the Columbia River and Horsethief Lake.
South side of Horsethief Butte
view along the Columbia River to the east
It was lovely to see the balsamroot in bloom.
We hiked a short ways up into the butte.
We saw some pictographs, they are very faded.
View to the west from up on Horsethief Butte
