standing stone trail

Jaime Wieland
Feb 19, 2023
3 min read

I half expected my husband to say no when I asked him if he wanted to drive 2 ½ hours to hike up over 1,000 steps. It seemed like such a good idea. Until it was time to go, lol. I had my doubts about how I was going to be able to physically handle climbing 1,000 steps because saying I am not in the best shape of my life is a huge understatement. But there was no way I was going to be the one to back down from this challenge. I have a few friends who have made this climb & all said they were glad they did it but half said they wouldn’t do it again. As we started the hike, I could understand why. The first 100 steps were intimidating. They were steep and uneven. There is a mark on every 100 steps. Before I even made it to step 100, I had an anxiety attack because of how high up we were already. It was a steep fall down and a dizzying and exhausting look upwards. Before the climb, I was more worried about how I would handle this trip physically. I never considered the fact that I’m afraid of heights, lol! After some encouraging quotes from Star Wars from my husband, (he suggested I learn how to work better with the "force"), we proceeded. If I focused on the next step in front of me rather than the ones behind or in front of me, I was fine. And it was exhilarating! There are areas on the hill every so many steps that are great for rest stops. Each holds a unique view and it’s hard to not take pictures at each one.

These steps were created around 1936 by the Harbison-Walker employees. It’s crazy to think what I walked for fun & exercise was once someone’s everyday commute. Needless to say, my husband and I were overwhelmed with adoration at the tough guys that were happy to have a job on top of these. It’s obvious OSHEA would not approve of these conditions.

The higher you climb, the better the view. There’s a celebration at the completion of every 100 steps and before you know it, you are at the top and you realize climbing 1,000 steps sounds worse than it really was. Which is why you won’t want to go back down yet because there are trails at the top of the stairs. We took an immediate left which led us to a rock structure previously used to fix the rail cars. We stood in awe of the view imagining what the workers did there years ago. We then found some steps going up again. Of course, we had to go. Those stairs took us to a nice even trail that led us to our first overlook through some trees. Thankfully we didn’t stop there because there was an even more open lookout further ahead. We ate lunch overlooking the Juanita River & town of Mapleton. We hiked a bit further until deciding to return to the top of the steps for time limits. Before heading down, we chose to hike the other direction first. I’m so glad we did. The overlook views were better on this side. I truly felt like a kid in the candy store because every view was better than the previous even though the first was amazing! We walked through a trail of pine trees and saw overlook after overlook. It was beautiful as you can see.

We finally hiked back down the trail. Surprisingly I wasn’t scared at all. I think the beauty of it all surpassed my fears. My husband & I are already talking about doing this hike again & I am still excited.