The Columbia River Gorge and Mt Hood

The day after our city of Portland visit we headed east along the Columbia River to explore the Columbia River Gorge. The shape of the Columbia river basin began with the largest outpouring of lava in the history of North America from 16 to 6 million years ago. Advancing and retreating glaciers carved the basalt creating today’s waterfall filled landscape that makes the Gorge a popular destination.

We stopped at the Bonneville Dam, constructed in 1934, to learn something about this historical landmark. We were treated to a surprise tour by an engineer named Lee who once worked there and designed many of the enhancements to the current dam and power plant. Lee told lots of great stories and gave us bits of trivia that added to our appreciation of this amazing place.   

Driving along the Historic Columbia River Highway we stopped to climb to the top of Mt Larch and were able to see 5 of the Cascade peaks at one: Mt St Helens, Mt Adams, Mt Rainier, Mt Hood, and Mt Jefferson. A truly amazing sight.

Closer to the river we visited many of the scenic waterfalls near Vista Point. We climbed to Wahclella, Elowah, and Multomah falls, logging almost 9 miles in the process (half of them straight uphill!). 

The next day we drove to Mt Hood Meadows, on the southeast side of Mt Hood. We learned they were offering ski lift rides up to the tree line of Mt Hood. We’ve never been skiing at Mt Hood but it sure is a beautiful place in the Summer. We enjoyed the sunny day with temperatures in the 60s. After taking the lift chair up, we hiked a few miles on the Timberline trail until we reached a waterfall. Not wanting to get wet feet and hungry for lunch, we doubled back to the lift.

After a well deserved lunch at the base of Mt Hood we continued our adventure to Little Crater Lake - a perfectly clear, deep, cold, tiny, spring-fed lake. Goofing around on a log jutting into the lake, one of us fell in the ice cold water and had to hike for an hour to dry off before continuing with our drive.

We finished the day driving around the east side of Mt Hood before returning to our RV near Portland.

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