Columbia River Gorge – Part 2

I realized that I should have mentioned where the Columbia River Gorge is.  The river is between Oregon and Washington.  Most of what I did was on the Oregon side, but I did go into Washington a couple of times.  I went to Vancouver, WA to go to Trader Joes and the credit union. 

I was expecting colder and rainy weather, but I wasn’t expecting this much cold and rain.  The snow level was down to 2000 feet for a few days, so some of the mountain passes were closed.  One of the hikes I wanted to do I couldn’t get to because of the snow.  Of course I didn’t find that out until I was just about there and found the road closed.  But on the drive I did see Mount Hood from several locations.

In the picture above, you can see Mt. Hood in the background, lava beds in the middle and the top of some fruit trees in the foreground.  I did make it to Government Camp (a ski resort) several days after the snow and went for a short walk in the snow.  Well being from Ga, I’m really not used to walking in snow.  When I started walking I quickly realized I wasn’t going to go far.  Some times my feet would sink just a couple of inches and other times they would sink 10 inches or so.  As I was going back to my car I noticed that the other people there had snowshoes on!!  I had a good laugh over that!

A few more waterfalls -

The above is Upper McCord Falls.  They are only about 64 feet, but one of my favorites.  The trail to the falls was interesting.  They had to blast out a trail on the the 400 foot walls around another water fall.   I also went to Elowah falls on this hike.

I was picking out pictures for this blog and put both of these in my temp area.  After looking at them,  I noticed how similar these falls are. 

The one on the left is Wahclella falls and the one on the right is Wahkeena_falls. 

One day, I went to Tom McCall Nature preserve and Rowena Crest.  This area is known for it’s wildflowers, but was extremely windy.

 

As you may have noticed, I like taking pictures of trails I hike.  Well one of them had a very different view that what I was used to--

This was the Starvation Creek Trail.  The trailhead was just off I-84 and as you can see was right beside the interstate for a short distance.  It was worth it.  I didn’t do the whole trail, but saw 3 more waterfalls. 

Next I go to Astoria, OR.