gorge rising, but in a good way
My, but damn, the Columbia Gorge is, er, gorge-ous. I saw it from I-84 on the drive from Texas when I first moved here, and it was even beautiful from the sterile cushion of the federal highway system. But that’s nothin’! Wait ‘til you see it up close!
For the last day of Dad’s visit, we knew we had to make it spectacular. And the Gorge fulfilled that promise with oodles of extra fulfillment left over!
We started in downtown Vancouver, WA, at Esther Short Park. For folks who are consistently keen to distance themselves from Portlanders, they sure have built a little mini-Portland there. Wait, wait—that’s a good thing! You can get fair-trade coffee, organic groceries, wicked hot sauce, and take it with you to enjoy in the park. We sure as hell did.
And after that, we hopped into the truck and headed east down Washington’s Highway 14, holding our noses as we passed the paper mill in Camas. We crossed the invisible Bridge of the Gods (invisible, seriously! it’s a steel grating, so at traffic speed it disappears when you look down!) and paid the toll, then headed to Oneonta Gorge.
Oneonta is one of those sights that rewards you for effort. You hike upstream, waddle across logs, splash over shallow spots, scrabble over boulders, and shrug helplessly at impassable logjams. But once you’ve done all that, what greets you is liquid beauty. Mist from distant falls. The sun breaking over the cliff. Sulfurous yellow lichens on the rock face. Just turn off your computer and go see it right now, seriously. The rest of the paragraphs below are crap, anyway.
From Oneonta, we proceeded down the road a bit to the much more touristy, but still awesome, Multnomah Falls, the nation’s second-largest year-round waterfall. Now, you can stand at the base and just take in the roar, but a one-mile walk up the 620-foot rise will get you a much better view. And yeah, we did the cheesy tourist thing and ate at the lodge—you know what? We’re not ashamed, dammit! It was yummy!
Crown Point was next. The view from this hill encompassed huge swaths of the Gorge both upstream and downstream. The stained-glass panes of Vista House have been standing there for about 90 years, and they’re still nice and shiny, if a little overwhelmed by all the beauty that’s been nearby for over 90 million.
Wow, what to do after that? Head back downtown for Stumptown Coffee and McCormick & Schmick’s, of course! We’re doing all the prototypical Portland stuff, so those two landmarks were a sandal-in.