Columbia River Gorge (9-26-24)

 Technically our visit here was our third poke into the Mount St. Helens area, but there is so much do do here, that became an afterthought.

We have been here before, but we realized that it was 10 years ago, and we were in a truck camper with no towed vehicle, which limited our ability to explore.

Paul had read about a hike to “Lower Lewis Falls” that he wanted to do so that was the first place we headed. It was actually a long drive from where we were staying, but we stopped along the way to break up the trip. One of the stops was Panther Falls. It was a short hike down to a waterfall that was difficult to see from our vantage point. I think there was another trail that might have been better, but we didn’t take the time to check it out.

As it turns out, this area of the Lewis River has three sets of waterfalls, Lower Lewis Falls, Middle Lewis Falls, and Upper Lewis Falls. They were all spectacular.

There is a hiking trail that connects all of the falls, but it was a bit long for us on this day so we started by just driving up to Lower Lewis Falls. All of the falls are within .3 miles of a parking area.

After enjoying these falls, we drove up to Middle falls, and hiked up to Upper falls and back, about 4 miles. The trail itself was awesome, through the deep forest, with views of the river as we walked. 

We found this gold colored rock very interesting, and it turns out its called Gold Dust Lichen. Very appropriate.

Upper Lewis Falls was definitely picture worthy, although not very approachable.

 

Middle Falls was my favorite. The water was gorgeous, as were the falls.

Had we brought swimsuits we could have easily taken a dip, and it was definitely warm enough to do that.

 

Done for the day, we looked for ideas for the following day. We were interested in doing a repeat of our hike to Multmonah Falls, which is one of the iconic hikes in this area. Well, lucky us that we did it 10 years ago because now it’s timed entry, with a lot of road construction going on, so we skipped it and headed instead to other nearby falls.

At just 3 miles with 800 ft of gain Latourell Falls Trail felt reasonably easy, so we added in a couple of other adventures first.

Pony Tail and Horse Tail Falls were both pretty good, with a short, 2 mile loop trail to see them.

The short, one mile hike to bridal veil falls is one of those easy walks that invites crowds. We power walked the hike, saw the falls, and stopped to eat lunch.

After lunch we headed to Latourell, hiking the loop that took us past both the lower falls and the upper falls.

 

Done earlyish in the day, we stopped by the local fish hatchery- Bonneville Fish Hatchery, It was a very pleasant surprise. Originally built in 1909 it is one of the oldest hatcheries in the area. The grounds were immaculate, and there were interpretive signs all along the way.  The fish that are hatched here are Sturgeon, Rainbow Trout, and Salmon. 

The sturgeon are essentially dinosaurs, and huge- many grow to be more than 20 feet long, and they can live to be 40-60 years old.

The salmon…. are running.  Salmon are anadromous, meaning they return to spawn where they were hatched.

The salmon climbing this fish ladder were released from here years ago, and have come back to Spawn- procreate- after which, they will have completed their life cycle. A very cool example of the cycle of life.

The campground we are staying in is Beacon Rock State Park Campground. It’s very small, with only 5 spots for Rvs.

On our last day we decided we needed to hike to the top of Beacon Rock.  The trail starts in the campground, which meant no driving for Paul, a perk for sure.

This land was bought by Henry Biddle in 1915, for a dollar, specifically so he could build a trail to the top of the rock.

And what a trail it is. It is essentially built onto the side of the rock, with cement reinforcements. Its up, up, and more up. All on the side of the rock.

Once at the top, there are views of the surrounding area, especially the Columbia River.