Columbia River Gorge Trip

We went to Portland and took the Historic Columbia River Highway along the gorge. It is very narrow and windy in places.

Our first stop was the scenic overlook at the Portland Women's Forum State Scenic Viewpoint. It was a very cloudy day and fog was in the valley.

If you look closely you will see the Crown Point Vista House on top of the cliff.

Our next stop was the Vista House. The highway actually goes around it.

Nolan and his sister inside the Vista House. Above them you can see the stained glass windows that decorate the upper story. In the corner is one of the busts discussed in the next photo.

Our next stop.

The bridge over Shepperd's Dell. The bridges and guard rails are all made of stone and are very nice.

We walked down to see the waterfall at Shepperd's Dell. Notice the moss growing on the guard rail.

Looking up at the bridge.

To view this waterfall we had to walk a trail that was 2/3 of a mile round trip.

Only a 0.4 mile round trip for this one.

We got a good view of it even before we started walking.

The trail was paved to this one. That is Nolan's sister and myself on the trail.

That is Nolan's brother-in-law taking a video of the falls.

On the way to the next sight, Nolan got his photo of the mountains on the Washington side of the Columbia River.

This is Multnomah Falls, the biggest falls along the gorge. There's even an exit off the interstate for this one.

The view from the bottom. On one of the signs we read mentioned that a boulder fell off the cliff and landed in the pool at the same time a wedding party was on the bridge. They got drenched!

I can't believe that Nolan didn't take any photos of the falls from the bridge after we climbed up to it! You can even take a trail to the top of the falls.

Our next stop was the Oneonta Tunnel. The road used to go through it until 1940 when rock collapsed into it. It looks newly redone. Also notice the vivid green lichen on the rocks. It looked like spray paint.

This falls actually required us to hike to see it.

At first the trail was a road to part of a fish hatchery and the stream ran alongside of it. We came to this bridge where we had a good view of the stream.

Off the other side of the bridge was this waterfall. We could practically reach out and touch it.

At the end of the bridge the path narrowed. We climbed for a while then dropped to a bridge where we crossed the stream.

Shortly after crossing the stream and climbing a little, we got our first glimpse of Wahclella Falls.

It fell into a large pool before heading down the stream.

I posed for a photo with the falls.

Nolan's sister and her husband along the trail. Just as we started back to the car, it started raining. Thank goodness it didn't come down hard but we were all a little damp when we got done.

After leaving Wahclella Falls, we headed to Hood River to see if anyone was windsurfing. Oh yeah it was windy and the windsurfers and kitesurfers were out in full force.

We watched the action for quite a while. Some of the windsurfers were doing tricks... or trying to do tricks.

I couldn't figure out how the kitesurfers could control their kites while surfing. Some of them didn't even have loops on their boards to attach their feet!

The windsurfers would speed toward shore then turn the board then the sail to head the other way. It is called jiving.

Nolan's brother-in-law started talking to a gal in a wetsuit. She was there with her two teens. This is the 16 year-old girl windsurfer. The 12 year-old boy had just finished kitesurfing before we got there. We asked the gal a lot of questions about the sports. She said the water was 51°! Brrr!!

A windsurf board and sail on land. Just as we finished watching the surfers, the sun came out.

The kites were huge and inflated with air for rigidity.

We almost thought there was a event going on because there were lots of vendors and RV's in the lot. This is a school bus made into a motorhome. I can't believe they didn't change the color!

Another photo of the Washington shore.