Klickitat Trail
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The Klickitat Rail to Trail is a recreation gem in the making. The 31-mile rail corridor travels from Lyle, WA up the Klickitat River and then heads up the isolated Swale Canyon before ending near Warwick, WA, just north of the Columbia Hills State Park.
After the rail line was purchased by the Rail to Trail Conservancy in the early 1990's, and then donated to Washington State Parks, the trail lanquished as a few adjacent landowners harassed trail users and put up fencing and gates.
In 2001, the college student doing a thesis on rail trail projects was harrassed by a landowner while biking the trail, then cited by Klickitat County Sheriff's Office for criminal trepass on public land!
That incident led a group of local residents and Friends of the Columbia Gorge to create the Klickitat Trail Conservancy, which successfully convinced Washington State Parks and the U.S. Forest Service to open the trail to the public.
Today, the lower 16 miles of the trail is managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the upper 15 miles is managed by the Washington State Parks with a volunteer cooperation agreement from the Klickitat Trail Conservancy.
Hit the Trail!
Check out the hiking schedules of Friends of the Columbia Gorge and the Klickitat Trail Conservancy! A map created pro bono by Walker Macy for the Klickitat Trail Conservancy is attached below.
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