Rocky Butte EarthCache EarthCache
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Rocky Butte is an extinct volcanic cinder cone. It is one of three, along with Powell Butte, and Mount Tabor that are located inside the city limits. It is also part of the Boring Lava Field, a group of over 30 cinder cones in Oregon and Washington.
Formerly known as Wiberg Butte, a large quantity of rock was removed from the quarry on the east face of Rocky Butte in the 1940s for use in a new Multnomah County jail. After the jail was demolished in the 1980s, much of the stone was reused along the Historic Columbia River Highway. In the early 1900s, the Union Pacific Railroad had a spur into the east side of the Butte at a station named Quarry.
Volcanic cones are among the simplest volcanic formations in the world. They are built by ejecta from a volcanic vent, piling up around the vent in the shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and size of the fragments ejected during the eruption. Types typically differentiated are spatter cones, ash cones, tuff cones, and cinder cones.
A cinder cone is a volcanic cone built almost entirely of loose volcanic fragments called cinders (pumice, pyroclastics, or tephra). They are built from particles and blobs of congealed lava ejected from a single vent. As the gas-charged lava is blown violently into the air, it breaks into small fragments that solidify and fall as cinders around the vent to form a circular or oval cone.
The Boring Lava Field is an extinct Plio-Pleistocene volcanic zone with at least 32 cinder cones and small shield volcanoes lying within a radius of 13 miles of Kelly Butte, which is approximately 4 miles east of downtown Portland. The name is derived from the town of Boring, Oregon, which lies just to the southeast of the most dense cluster of lava vents. The zone became active at least 2.7 million years ago, and has been extinct for about 300,000 years.
The Portland metropolitan area, including suburbs, is one of the few places in the continental United States to have extinct volcanoes within a city's limits; Bend, Oregon is another.
To log this cache go to the listed coords. There is a compass there. How many arrows are on the compass?
How many steps are there to the top of the butte?
Estimate the elevation difference between where you are now and the street below (where you parked at) not the highway.
Added Bonus: Take a picture of yourself holding GPS in front of Dr. J.W. Hill statue.
Rocky Butte is a popular location for rock climbers in the Portland area. It hosts approximately 150 routes which vary in difficulty and type.
***CONGRATULATIONS TO Warnock3d ON THE FTF***
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