The Columbia River Gorge Scenic Waterfall Byway
It seems that every year Oregon calls us back and we’re finding ourselves increasingly familiar with Portland. Our first venture was in the winter of 2013 on our way to San Francisco followed by a trip in the winter of 2014 and again, this time in the summer of 2015. Where our previous two trips ranged South and West along the coast, our intention for this trip was to head East, into the flat lands.
As is becoming a routine, we stopped in Portland for Thai food carts and Powell’s books. Our hotel was to the East to give us a jumpstart on our drive through the Columbia Gorge so we visited Mt. Tabor. It is a City Park on top of an extinct volcano that has several of the city’s reservoirs. The view was somewhat disappointing but the freedom to walk around and be somewhere new as exhilarating.
Life only got better the following day at our first stop of the Columbia Gorge, Crown Point.
Named for it’s crowning location and views of the scenic byway, the vista house has been greeting traveler since 1917 and was recently renovated in 2006. Whether travelling east or west, the view from this building is magnificent and we both got great instagram photos.
The Columbia Gorge Scenic Byway is a 121 km highway that follows the Columbia river (border between Washington and Oregon) east to west from Portland to The Dalles. There is an interstate that parallels the river, but the best parts of the scenic byway are along a two lane road that winds it’s way along the side of the gorge past several waterfalls.
Bridal Veil falls proved to be the most photogenic and we were able to get up pretty close.
Some of the other waterfalls we stopped at were less interesting but we still took the opportunity to get some photos and go hiking up the side of the gorge. That may have been a mistake at Wahkeena Falls as we were terribly hungry and wanted to have lunch but preserved to the top to see the view, which wasn’t all that spectacular.
By lunch the highway and parking lots were getting filled with other tourists so we stopped for a picnic lunch of extra Thai food we’d picked up in Portland. Then we went to Multnomah Falls, the tallest waterfall in Oregon and the most popular, because it has a restaurant and gift boutique. We were fortunate to find a parking spot but only spent a few minutes taking photos as there was a large crowd and we didn’t find it all that interesting.
Our day worked out well though, because there were more interesting things coming on our travels East as we headed down the Journey Through Time Scenic Byway making a few wrong turns in the process.
