Bluff Mountain

The Bluff Mountain Trail in the Silver Star Scenic Area is a section of the Chinook Trail System, a work-in-progress 300 mile bi-state loop encircling the Columbia River Gorge. Bluff Mountain is one of many trails that makes up this loop, and is frequently visited by WTA crews for improvement!

The trail starts out from the Bluff Mountain Trailhead in a wide saddle at McKinley Ridge along FR 4100 at about 3475 feet of elevation. The two-track trail continues south along the ridge for another 2.25 miles, passing over a high point of about 3610 feet of elevation before dropping to 3280 feet. It then continues as single-track. The trail then dips into a low, brushy saddle at 3120 feet before climbing the ridge about 1.2 miles southwesterly to a forested saddle between Bluff Mountain and Little Baldy.

The trail then continues on eastward generally following either side of the ridgeline between the Star Creek and the Washougal drainages then coming to the intersection with the Starway Trail at about elevation 3810 feet.

Here, you're about 5 miles from the trailhead. There is typically no water on this leg of the trail and it is more exposed than not, with little or no shade on the talus slope.

From here, continue another 0.8 miles past the junction to an unmarked junction. Turn left and ascend a short trail that joins an old road bed leading to the Silver Star Mountain summit.

Alternately, you can continue past the unmarked junction to an intersection with the Silver Star Trail, where you will turn left (south) onto Trail 190 and take another left about 0.2 miles to reach the summit.

Snow tends to remain on a portion of the trail directly north of the summit and can be challenging to transit when most of the rest of the trail system is clear of snow.

Along the way, the route passes numerous rocky outcrops and open talus slopes where rocky subsoil and repeated fires since the Yacolt Burn of 1902 have limited forest regeneration.

From the top there are the scenic vistas of Portland, the Columbia River and Mount Hood. For the trail maintenance aficionado, you’ll notice some impressive trail building through the talus fields and a few fine rock retaining walls. Lastly, if you forgot your lunch, you’ll be able to feast on huckleberries if the season is right.

About the area

The two-track portion of trail passes through some harvested and re-forested areas, and burned and re-forested area, but is generally open affording views in most directions.

Several of the burned and re-forested areas were mechanically terraced with seedling trees planted in the hinge of the terrace. This method was mostly successful except for a few areas subject to extreme weather near the ridgetops.