Skamania County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Skamania County

8:32 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, May 18, 1980 — Mount St. Helens erupted laterally and removed 1,300 vertical feet of its summit in 9 hours, killing 57 people and depositing ash across 11 states per US Geological Survey post-eruption summary. Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, a USFS-administered 110,000-acre preserve (not NPS — the unit is administered by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest under the 1982 National Volcanic Monument Act passed specifically for this site), is the most-monitored active volcano in the contiguous United States and the only federal monument dedicated to a single recent volcanic event. The Spirit Lake Highway WA-504 climbs 52 miles from I-5 exit 49 at Castle Rock to the Johnston Ridge Observatory at 4,314 ft on the volcano's blast side (the observatory is named for USGS volcanologist David A. Johnston, killed at this exact location during the May 1980 eruption while transmitting his final words 'Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!'). The Coldwater Lake Recreation Area near milepost 45 and the Forest Learning Center at milepost 33 are the principal RV-accessible stops; rigs to 45 ft are accommodated on the highway and at the Johnston Ridge parking lot.

Skamania County's 1,656 sq mi wrap the entire volcano's southern half, the Columbia River Gorge's Washington side (including the Bridge of the Gods crossing at Cascade Locks, a 1926 cantilever bridge with a 14-ft vertical clearance that excludes any rig over 13 ft 11 in), and the historic Wind River drainage where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses WA-14 at Stevenson. Beacon Rock State Park accepts rigs to 30 ft on 26 sites with no hookups; the namesake Beacon Rock (848 ft, the second-largest free-standing monolith in the Northern Hemisphere after the Rock of Gibraltar) is climbable via a 1-mile switchback trail built into the basalt face. Gifford Pinchot NF permits 14-day dispersed camping along Wind River Highway (Forest Service Road 30) with rigs to 30 ft. WA-14 along the Columbia River south shore is the only paved through-route across the entire county; eastbound access to the Mt. Adams area requires routing through Klickitat County. Bonneville Dam at the county's western boundary is the oldest Columbia River dam (1937), with public fish-ladder viewing and a free visitor center.