May 13, 2010One of the things you can do at the Astoria Column is to study the bronze relief map on the walkway leading do the column. The text on the map gives interesting notations, such as how far it is to this place or that. From this angle, looking north, we're seeing at the Columbia River and the hills of Washington in the background. You can barely see the Washington side of the bridge on the left. The map tells us that the base of the column is 595 feet above sea level.
From the opposite direction, in the background we can see Saddle Mountain on the left, and Young's River emptying into Young's Bay. Saddle Mountain is 17 miles away, according to the map.
This bronze map was donated to the City of Astoria by the Angora Hiking Club in 1966. Some pathetic vandal has chiseled off part of the word "donated." Fortunately, that's a relatively rare occurrence around here.
