Portland, OR - Gorgeous in the Gorge

“Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live.”

                                        Oregon Governor Tom McCall (1967 - 1975)

80° and sunny. Whoo-eee, let’s do the Gorge. Along with several thousand of our new best friends. Well, you know, Oregon gets so few sunny days that everyone in Portland is heading down the road to the Gorge today, a Sunday. And, I don’t blame them. It’s us for the Gorge too.

We started at Panera for a light breakfast treat. Now, if you’ve read this blog you know that we like Panera but we actually haven’t been in a Panera since we left Altoona, IA in October so this is a real treat. While we were there Cathy and Tom, Gary’s sister and brother-in-law, called and we had a lovely talk: relatives who turned into best friends. The most fun we ever had on the road was when they had an RV and were traveling too. We talked and texted every day and met them for a few weeks in Sedona. Fun, fun, fun.

We drove out of the Panera parking lot and turned onto the road to the Gorge: OMG, OMG, is that Mt. Hood? Oh, my, it really is Mt Hood off there. It’s not just a mirage. It’s not just a fable to get tourists to visit Oregon. Nope, it really exists. The last time we were here in Portland, we were here for a week and NEVER saw Mt. Hood. Oh, we glimpsed it one day shrouded in clouds, but no real sighting. We were sure it was just a story the Oregonians made up to draw tourist dollars. Today we saw that it really exists. I like this view since it shows you just what average Oregonians see every day - no big deal - just a mountain. Well, we Flatlanders think this is a really big deal.

Now the Gorge. First stop: the Women’s Federation Park where we get this cool view down the River eastward.

This huge river begins as snowmelt in the Canadian Rockies. Hard to imagine. Then it drains loads of other river systems in its 1200-mile run to the Pacific and is the nation’s 4th largest river. Right now we are 725’ above it. See those cliffs on either side, formed by an Ice Age flood scouring through the lava flows 18,000 - 13,000 years ago. Floods? Volcanoes? Snowmelt? Me, I just enjoy the views.

‘The most expensive comfort station in the world.’

That tiny little knob on the next cliff down the gorge is a building called the Vista House, built on a prominent promentory. It was built to give those traveling along the Gorge road a place to relax and refresh with its beautiful views. It was projected to cost $17,000, actually did cost $99,148 and was called: ‘the most expensive comfort station in the world.’
The restoration of the building was finished in 2005 and cost $4,500,000: half from private funds and donations and half from various state, county and federal sources.

From the Women’s Federation Park and from the Vista House the views are extraordinary in their scope both down the river and up.

Beautiful ceiling inside.

I found this cool truck at the Vista House. I’ll need a ladder to get into it. Maybe we can buy it to pull our motor home.

After the Vista House, the road along the Gorge winds its way gently down the cliff (picture couples dressed in their Sunday finery sitting primly in their black Fords)

to the bottom and then follows the river up the Gorge.

This is what the curves looked like before all the trees and greenery grew.

It winds past some marvelous waterfalls, absolutely stunning in their number, variety and heights.

The first one we hit was the Latourell Falls. Many of the falls along the road are very accessible to anyone. Some can be seen from the road itself. There are also trails around the falls if you want to get up close and personal with them. Many trails go beyond the falls lining the road to falls in back, further up the small canyons. We’ve taken many of these trails and they are pretty nice. Of course, on a sunny Sunday, they are packed. But, that’s some of the fun - seeing others out enjoying nature’s wonders. Of course, as we approached Multnoma, the most famous, the most visited and the most photographed falls, we had this scene.

And, our GPS showed this (red dots mean lots of stop and go traffic. The blue dot is where we are, right in the middle of it all.

The last time we had been in the Gorge, the most famous of the waterfalls with the most amazing fall, Multnoma, was being repaired and all we saw was this fine white tarp. Not much of a view. Looks like it was a cool day back two years ago.

This year the repairs were done, the bridge was open and the views up the falls were marvelous.

From the bridge down to where I took the picture of the whole falls we could see some of our dozens of new best friends. Nothing like a quiet contemplative day in the park.

But, since we could climb the trail up to the bridge, we could also cross the bride and hike to the top of the falls. Couldn’t do that last time. Here’s the first sign by the first switchback.

11? 11? You’re kidding of course. Nope, there were AT LEAST 11 and I counted 12 (we hit 6 of 11, turned at the next switchback and at the next one after that was a sign saying 7 of 11. Hmmm. What about that middle switchback? Was that not long enough, not high enough? Didn’t it count?)

We were so surprised to see so many on this hike. We really hadn’t expected so many. It was pretty long, steep and arduous. But the payoff was amazing, we could see the top of the falls - and the parking lots below. 2 huge parking lots and mostly full. We were actually in a third parking lot to the right that is not in this picture and then there were those parked along the road.

Fun fun hike but straight up those switchbacks. We were both surprised to see how many others were also climbing up them.

Back at the gift shop at the bottom I found this treasure.

Hmmm. At least it’s a small gift for someone back at home who has everything.
4 falls, 3 hikes, 2 vista points and 1 Mt Hood in our sight and we were ready to head home - at 7:30. Hmmm. How about dinner at Panera where we started out?

Then home. One last view of Mt Hood shrouded in snow at night.