Tag Archives: Coyote Wall Hike

May3

BCEP – Leading a hike at Catherine Creek (Coyote Wall)

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.

Saturday, 01-Apr-2023


With the scouting done the weekend before, we were ready for our training hike. I’d emailed a prospectus out (a fancy “here’s the info you need” email), and everyone knew both what to bring and where to meet. We’d be convening at the trailhead, hiking, then heading to a nearby campground to sleep out under the stars before doing some actual technical rock climbing at Horsethief Butte the next day.

I have a special place in my heart for Horsethief, since it was the first spot in Oregon that I ever climbed (Ed Note: See the post below, dear readers!), so I was absolutely quite excited for the chance to help everyone lock in their skills ahead of time.

The weather was perfect when we met up at the trailhead, and we got going nice and easily on time… maybe 10min late, but that kind of fits with my style, so I’ll take it as a win.


Ohh… what to write about the hike… We walked. We snacked, we adjusted layers, and we hiked some more. We got to the spot I’d marked out, and set up our anchors and ropes. The students practiced, and further etched the skills they’d need into their memory. We discussed pros and cons to various options, and weighed when each would be appropriate out in the field.

We hiked on.

It snowed, a bit, but nothing stuck… just enough for us to feel good, and get some singularly excellent views.


I led from the front, as strange as that sounds for a hike, and was able to keep a pretty solid pace for the team. It went well, I’m thankful to report, and I was quite happy with how it all shook out.



That evening, we made camp and hit the hay early… but not before catching up with some of the other teams who were joining us at the Maryhill Campground – one of which was my team from the previous year, the Snakedogs! It was awesome getting to catch up with everyone, and hear how their BCEP sessions were going. I learned a bit about what Portland Mountain Rescue (the folks who rescue injured climbers on Mt. Hood) were up to, and what “interesting” politics they were dealing with this year.

I’d brought some pulled pork that I’d slow-cooked the day before, and then put into a battery-powered crock pot, which went over quite well. I shared my delicious creation, sampled many other peoples submissions to the group, and even got to enjoy some especially delicious whiskey.

It was a good day.


My first climb at Horsethief, and in Oregon itself!

https://talesfromthehutt.com/2015/08/31/my-birthday-weekend-the-fourth-weekend-that-im-in-hood-river-oregon-and-the-west-coast-saturday-ribs-and-climbing/


May1

BCEP – Scouting a hike at Catherine Creek (Coyote Wall)

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.


Saturday, 25-Mar-2023


My next event for BCEP 2023 was a training hike, combined with a chance to practice some of the skills that the students had first learned in the MMC. I’d volunteered to lead it, since good form for belaying and rappelling is quite near and dear to me… but that meant scouting the terrain first, and locking down a location to review the skills. A “leader’s recon”, if you’ll forgive the ROTC parlance that’s still somehow engrained in my brain…

(Ed Note: No, Ben never was a cadet in ROTC. Yet somehow he found a way to take a few of their leadership classes, which wormed their way into his long-term memory)

The goal was simple: Jess and I would hike Coyote Wall, at Catherine Creek, and track down a good spot to set up a few anchors to belay / rappel off.




The execution was… less simple.

Turns out – Catherine Creek doesn’t have a lot of viable cliffs. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a LOT of cliffs at Catherine Creek! But here’s the thing… none of them had any particularly good anchor points, or approaches, or… really any of the things that I was looking for in a training area. They all looked great from a distance, but I quickly lost faith in them as we approached closer in.

On top of that, the “standard” BCEP route was blocked off by a sign.

“But Ben, you walk past signs all the time! Why would you care about this one?”

“Well, Other-Ben, this sign said ‘NO TRESSPASSING’ and was pockmarked with bullet holes”

“Good choice on not walking past that sign, Ben”



With the standard route blockaded and no grand areas to be found, I settled on the best that I could – a nice meadow on a 15 Degree slope, with a few good trees that we could anchor off of. It wasn’t the best, but it was what we had. And that’s what we use, in the wilderness – not what we want to have, but what we actually have.

I figured it’d be a good lesson, you know?

And hey – I got to hike with Jess! And we got to see some amazing sunset views, alongside glorious Gorge vistas! I’ll take it as a win, all day any day.


Sep21

Hiking Coyote Wall, in the Fall

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Sunday, 16-Sept-2018

First off – There were no Coyote sightings at Coyote wall.  Weak, I know, but hey.  C’est la vie.
Second off – woo hiking!  We’re still doing our training hikes, building our endurance and strength back up, and this was one more step on that ladder – a bit longer, a bit higher elevation gain, slightly heavier packs… slowly but surely, you know?
Coyote Wall is something that we’ve hiked before, but hadn’t made it all the way up to the top of before.  It’s out in the Columbia River Gorge, it’s got great views, and it’s just long enough and has just enough elevation gain to make it a legit challenge for us right now.  It’s pretty ideal, honestly.
We started in late, as a way to dodge the morning rain, and arrived just as the sun was starting to burn through the clouds.  It was beautiful, and we started into the hike with extremely high spirits, and energetic squealing from both Sarah and Ollie.  I, being the professional adult of the group, merely squeaked under my breath and smiled a lot.

The start of the trail is a bit dull, thanks to it being a section of the old gorge highway… but it’s still pretty beautiful, since I use “highway” very loosely here… we’re talking 1.5 cars wide, semi-paved… this isn’t a modern road, but one of the original roads going down the gorge as a pleasure road instead of a working road.
But once we broke onto the main trail (with a little bit of help from a random trailrunner), the views and the terrain took a huge turn for the impressive.  We worked our way up an endless series of switchbacks, constantly moving upwards along the ridgeline toward the trees in the far distance.  The terrain was mostly grasslands with random spurs of rock sticking out – Ollie’s ideal running ground, incidentally – with almost nothing blocking our views of the gorge stretching out below us.
As we got higher we started being able to see the edge of the Columbia Gorge Plateau in the distance and the vineyards dotting the landscape in between… it honestly seemed like something out of a fairytale, or maybe Lord of the Rings?
Anyways, the weather held out on us, staying beautiful right up until the point when we stopped for lunch.  We’d decided that it was about time to turn around anyways (a late start means a late lunch, which means tired legs), but the rain definitely helped us feel better about our decision.

It didn’t last long, thankfully, but it did seem to have kept everyone else off the trail for the day… we’d seen the weather report of course, but had decided that the middling chance of rain wouldn’t be enough to stop us from taking a day hike.  But I guess other people didn’t feel the same way, because we saw almost no one for the whole trip; it was beautifully abandoned, which just added to the sense of wonder and fantasy that we’d felt on the way up.  And the views were even better on the way down too!  Since we were facing down-hill, toward the Columbia River itself, we were able to spend the entire time just watching the landscape… it did make placing our feet a little tough, I’ll admit, but the distraction was absolutely worth it 🙂