Columbia Gorge

Henry Gulick's house

We awoke at 5 this morning after sleeping well at the Shilo Inn in The Dalles.  We responded to some emails and made a few calls for work then went to breakfast with Mark & Cindy at the hotel dining room.  The breakfast was very good and got us started well.  While we were eating breakfast we saw some old buildings behind the motel near the banks of the Columbia River.  We learned that the structures were built by a Scottish immigrant, Henry Gulick in 1890.  He married a local Indian woman and built a house, barns and an Indian Shaker church.  We noticed that the structures were held together with forged square nails and that many of the buildings were still fairly sound.

As we left The Dalles we stayed mostly on Rt. 30 which parallels I-84. Since we planned to make several stops at spots along the way, we wanted to stay on two lane roads.  Before we had gone too far we saw markers for a campsite that was used by the Lewis and Clark party near the Columbia River.  The steep cliffs offered a good view of the river as well as protection from any threats that may come by river. 

Our next stop was at the Columbia River Discovery Center where the excellent signage informed us about the unique vegetation of the Columbia Gorge.  The trails around the center were well marked and interesting.  We walked the trails and took some snapshots before the rain started in falling harder so we headed to the car and continued westward on Rt. 30.

We made several stops on Rt. 30 at scenic overlooks including one at the peak of the Cascade Range where there were great views of the Columbia Gorge.  There was also a nice wildlife area where we walked around and looked at the plants of the high desert of the Pacific Northwest.

Bridal Veil Falls

Along Rt. 30 in the Columbia Gorge near the Columbia River there are a number of breathtaking waterfalls.  Some of the waterfalls were we stopped were Horsetail Falls, Multnomah Falls, Wahkeena Falls, Latourell Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls.  We only walked in to Horsetail Falls, Latourell Falls and Bridal Veil Falls since the rain was very heavy at times.  Horsetail Falls was an easy visit since it was right beside Rt. 30 and required no walk.  We waited in the car until the rain slacked a bit then ran over to look at the falls.  The 176 foot tall falls were flowing well with all of the rain that had been falling over the week.  We waited a while at Multnomah Falls hoping for a break in the rain, but the rain was so heavy that we moved on without walking the few hundred yards up to the falls. 

Latourell Falls

The next waterfall was Bridal Veil Falls which is a total of 160 feet for both segments of the waterfall.  We took a steep but well maintained gravel path of about 2/3 miles each way to the viewing area once the rain had slacked a bit.  Bridal Veil Falls were beautiful and well worth with the walk.  The last waterfall we visited was Latourell Falls which was was a nice stop, and the rain had slacked to a mist so we walked up the hill about two hundred yards to the viewpoint of the falls.  The Lower Latourell Falls is about 249 feet tall but another smaller Upper Latourell Falls adds another 100 feet of waterfall.  We didn’t hike up to the upper falls since the rain resumed, so we got back in the car. 

Mary & Stave at Latrouell Falls

We attempted to visit the Bonneville Dam area on the Columbia River.  However, since the dam is operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers, it was not open because of the government shutdown.  We were really irritated that we were unable to visit many of the National Parks and other sites that are otherwise available in the area.  Since most of the area is not staffed, we saw no savings to the government in closing them to the public.  It appeared to us that closing these sites was a vindictive move on the part of the federal government to make voters prod their legislators to bring an end to the impasse.  Although we were unable to visit the Bonneville Dam, we were able to visit a fish hatchery operated by the State of Oregon.  This hatchery captures wild salmon from the Columbia River as they travel upstream and extract the eggs to raise in the hatchery.  The hatchery raises several types of salmon as well as white sturgeon.  Rain fell in buckets while we were at the hatchery, but the visit was so interesting that we couldn’t bring ourselves to go back to the car.  Mark and I were amazed at the large salmon jumping high as they attempted to travel upstream at the walls of the hatchery catch basins.  We also spent a good deal of time at the viewing pond where large salmon and sturgeon are kept.  A window underwater allowed us to view the large fish swimming in the pond.  The star of the show is Herman the Sturgeon, a 70 year old ten foot long white sturgeon. We had lunch in the car as we sat in the rain and warmed up after getting soaked looking at all the fish.

Mark gets ready for a walk to a waterfall

We continued our westward drive along Rt. 30 to I-205 South to avoid much of the Portland traffic as we passed through the area around 3:30 in the afternoon.  We had a few slowdowns but had no problems and intersected with I-5 South passing through Salem and Corvallis.  We stopped at Albany for gas at the Costco.  We arrived back at Whittingtons by 5:30 and had a nice dinner of chicken with broccoli and pasta.  After dinner Mary and Cindy looked at Sarah and Greg’s photos of Italy while Mark and Michael watched television.  Robert worked until 8 pm at the Thurston McDonalds.

We hope to go to Cottage Grove tomorrow.  It is a nice small town with beautiful covered bridges.

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