Bennett’s Pass, Oregon

Rise and Shine

Some friends and I met up around 9:00 am then headed east on highway 84 to Hood River.

After exiting in Hood River, we drove south on highway 35. Where we later entered onto the trail.

Once off road we pulled over, aired down our tires to 19 psi, and began driving down the trail around 10:45.

The trail

Stock trucks and SUVs can likely make this as long as they are equipped with 4wheel drive but I would highly recommend aftermarket tires, and a lift. There is a section of the trail that is slightly washed out and has a decent number of large rocks you have to navigate.

This route is bi-directional so you may encounter someone coming up or down the road. The trail is narrow with occasional passing spots.

There are some optional side roads that can challenge your vehicle. One is a hill climb or decent near the triangle intersection at the turn off to Badger Lake. Downhill route is steep and requires a healthy amount of braking.

The uphill route has an initial hump and dip that takes minor consideration but nothing difficult. Another spot is a hill climb through narrow trees that ends with a spectacular view of Mt. Hood.

A word of caution in this area. One pair of trees are very close and one of them the tree trunk has been previously notched with an axe or chainsaw.

We found that this encourages tire slippage downhill toward the other tree. Quiet the pucker moment for some of us when we realized we had narrowly a hand width of clearance between our trucks and the tree bark.

Optional flex test rocks and stumps

There are a couple rocks and stumps you can drive onto that can test your vehicle suspension and flex.

Once complete reverse back the way you came. Its not recommended you continue forward for you may high center and damage your rig.

The iconic Bennett’s Pass cliffside

This section of the trail is very iconic especially when you google search the trail and for good reason.

This area is very beautiful and well worth the trip.

It is one of the sketchier sections of the trail with a narrow road and a steep, treeless decent to one side.

We descended rather than climbed. So, my passenger got the nerves of overlooking the drop off.

Time Frame:

We spent roughly 5 hours driving this trail. We began at 10:45AM and exited into the parking lot around 4:00PM. We did take our time, shot a bunch of photos, and even stopped to make lunch.

Photo Credit:

Some photos curtesy of Davin, Mike, and David.