Page Index:

• Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children
• The Grotto
• NE Rocky Butte Road
• Joseph Wood Hill Park
• Rocky Butte Natural Area
• Rocky Butte Jail

April 8, 2020

For now I am just building the framework for this section. I will be adding a lot of content, but this section is pretty bare bones for the moment.

Patrick Johnson, Rocky Butte - Stunning Views with a Bit of History

So I took a drive to the top of one of Portland’s highest east-side points and was amazed at what I found.

At the top of the drive, which was about a mile up a very curvy NE Rocky Butte Road, there is a city of Portland park called Joseph Wood Hill Park. The drive alone is worth the trip, as you will see some stunning views on the way up. There is also a historic tunnel which reminds visitors of the craftsmanship of many of the local highways, such as the Historic Columbia River Highway in the Columbia River gorge.

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Joseph Wood Hill Park sits atop Rocky Butte like a crown jewel of Portland parks. After finding a park spot – and parking is mostly along the streets – you walk up to the 2.38-acre flat park that is surrounded by more rock walls and lampposts.

OregonHikers.org: Rocky Butte Hike

Rocky Butte, one of Portland's Boring volcanoes, lay in the direct path of the Bretz or Missoula Floods, some of the largest known on the planet, which blasted down the Columbia Gorge from what is now Montana over a period of about 2,000 years until about 13,000 B.C. The eastern face of the cinder cone was extensively eroded as the Portland area went under 400 feet of water. The west side of Rocky Butte, now known as the Alameda Ridge, became a collection of debris from hundreds of miles away. The northeast side of the butte also hosted a rock quarry, which gave rise to its current name; previous to this, it was known as Wiberg Butte. Stone from the quarry was used in the construction of the former Multnomah County Jail, located nearby and demolished to make way for the freeway. Cliff faces on the northeast side of the butte hold over 100 climbing routes, and bouldering practice can be enjoyed on the stone walls at the summit. The trail route described below crosses public lands belonging to state and city parks and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Wikipedia: Rocky Butte

Rocky Butte (previously known as Wiberg Butte) is an extinct cinder cone butte in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is also part of the Boring Lava Field, a group of volcanic vents and lava flows throughout Oregon and Washington state. The volcano erupted between 285,000 and 500,000 years ago.

As part of the Boring Lava Field, Rocky Butte is considered an outlier of the Cascade Range. It was also produced by the subduction of the oceanic Juan de Fuca tectonic plate under the North American tectonic plate; it is the core remnant of intrusive rock from kilate Pleistocene volcano. The Butte has a calc-alkaline composition and consists of basaltic andesite with olivine phenocrysts.

Historically, the mountain was the home of the Rocky Butte Jail, Judson Baptist College, and Hill Military Academy, as well as an extensive Works Progress Administration construction project; it is also currently the site of a still functioning but decommissioned aircraft beacon, Portland Bible College, and a campus for the City Bible Church. The slopes of Rocky Butte currently support Joseph Hill Wood Park and the Rocky Butte Natural Area, which includes a wide variety of flora and fauna and supports rich forest stands. Located next to Interstate 205, the Butte is a popular destination for hiking, climbing, and seeing mountains from its summit viewpoint.

Links

CLICK HERE to continue exploring the highway