The greatest honor is for a friend to share their home with me. The greatest gift is when they share their favorite place.

Today my dear friend took me on her favorite hike here near Portland Oregon. It is winter here raining and snowing at higher elevations. She said “You have to climb Beacon Rock, I take everyone there. “

When I saw the rock I wasn’t sure. How on earth were we going to climb that?

The trail started as a beautiful gradual assent through verdant mosses. Although the trail was wet it wasn’t slippery .

Then the switchbacks began, back and forth up and up. I’m usually not afraid of heights but I found myself walking as close to the rock face as possible.

The view of the Colombia River gorge was astounding. I made it all the way to the top but I wasn’t looking forward to the decent. As I walked down I was amazed by the engineering of this trail every switchback was graded in such a way that walking back down was a piece of cake.

Thank you Henry Biddle for purchasing this rock for a dollar from investors who wanted to blow it up and building this trail, and thanks Susan for sharing this gift with me. The trail is 4,500 feet long and four feet wide with a maximum grade of 15%. All materials to build it were packed up on the backs of donkeys.