RETIREMENT TRIP #7

Water, Water, Everywhere...

                                                                 Oregonians take advantage of weekends outdoors.  Yesterday every pullout and state park along Route #30 in the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Byway was crammed with hikers and bikers…crippled ancients with canes, oldsters in plaid pants who clambered up the steep trails, sweating joggers with water bottles, families carrying babies, young lovers holding hands.  We saw them all.  This morning assumed the pullouts would be empty.  We returned to check out the spots we had missed because there was absolutely no parking.

Multnomah Falls, tallest and most
famous, attracts thousands of visitors.

Oneonta Gorge was completely blocked by an internal rock and tree slide.  Picking our way along the craggy cliff side, we reached the bottom where a photographer took pictures of a young couple.  Her blue silk gown caught the morning breeze as the two balanced on a fallen log.  It was only 9:30 a.m.Multnomah Falls, the tallest and most famous waterfall of the Gorge, bustled with activity.  Busses had already unloaded and lines of people waited for morning coffee.  “I’m not climbing to the bridge,” announced Andy.  “I never thought we’d have crowds on Monday morning.”
Like yesterday, we noticed with surprise and regret, how much Oregon struggles to maintain this area so overwhelmed with visitors.


A steep trail takes visitors
down to Bridal Veil Falls.

Bridal Veil Falls dropped from the road to the Columbia below.  A couple steep switchbacks and 30 or 40 stairs took us down about a third of a mile to a secluded double falls, wider than most of the others.

Steps lead down the cliff
to views of Bridal Veil Falls.

Shepard’s Dell is a photographer’s nightmare: a beautiful waterfall next to the road, an arching stone bridge just above at a peculiar angle, trees and lush vegetation coated with moss obscuring everything and a morning sun brightening only the very top. 


Encapsulated by vegetation,
Shepard's Dell reminds
visitors of a jungle habitat.

But it was lovely walking to the waterfall.
Then we were on our way back to the Columbia and headed west to Seaside.  Except for heavy traffic around Portland on Routes #5 and #405, the drive along Route #26 was pleasant.   This was logging country.  Huge swatches in the distance had been clear cut, but most of the damage couldn’t be seen from the road where a corridor of pine trees lined the pavement.
“It was a standard 150 feet in when we hiked in Maine,” said Andy.  But here the companies seem responsible, if we judge by the replanting.  We also noticed that the hardwoods were changing.  Yellow tinges accented the very tops of hardwoods in between the pines.  “We were here six years ago,” said Andy, “but that was already mid-October and into the rainy season.”
Today was clear and beautiful with temperatures in the 70’s.
We turned into a state park, thinking we would find a viewpoint of the adjoining clear cuts for Tara’s environmental science teaching.  Instead, after five or six miles of deeply pot-holed road that wound into a rock peak, the road dead-ended at a make-shift hunting lodge, complete with camouflaged cross-bow hunters, and a parking lot for the hiking trail to the summit.  We turned around to re-negotiate the pot holes for an ungrateful exit.

An observation platform at South Jetty
allows visitors to view the water in
both directions.

 The rest of the afternoon we tried driving on the beach near Seaside and on another beach at North Jetty, strolling along the ocean side at Fort Stevens State Park, and checking out South Jetty, where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean.   Here the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the jetty in the late 1800’s to keep the shore from shifting.


From the observation deck, we watch the waves pound
against the rocks of South Jetty, sending spray high in the air.

“I’ve never seen a jetty that long,” said Andy.  Waves beat against the rocks and sent spray shooting up.  “It has to be long though, or the power of the ocean would just wash away everything.” On the other side of the jetty, a huge arm of sand curled outward.  The sign said a mile of sand had collected here since Lewis and Clark visited in the early 1800’s.
Another turnout led to beach access where the Peter Iredale ran aground during a storm in 1906. 


Only a small portion of hull remains from the English
ship Peter Iredale, stranded on the beach during a 1906 storm.

The steel remains of the old English sailing ship lie buried in the sand.  People sun bathed, flew kites, walked dogs and waded along the gently lapping waves as the tide came in.Andy drove in to several other access spots for leisure walks along the water.  He couldn’t believe the sandbox I collected in both shoes.  I’m very good at that—never learned to walk right!
It’s interesting that every beach in the State of Oregon is public from water line to vegetation high water mark. That makes just about every beach free and legal for public use.
Our last stop was Fort Stevens.  “So that’s why there’s a park and a fort in the park,” said Andy.  The area had been an old military base, and the Battery Russell remains to commemorate the World War II defense against the Japanese on the West Coast and to preserve a bit of history from the 1940’s.

In serious disrepair the Battery Russell military installation
 at old Fort Stevens records life of a different era.

The military installation was used to guard the mouth of the Columbia River from the Civil War through World War II.  We explored the abandoned gun batteries. The pamphlet said visitors could climb to the commander’s station for a view of the Columbia River and South Jetty, but we never found that.
Day and night three members from the Lewis and Clark Expedition boiled salt water at what is now Lewis and Clark Saltworks in order to get five bushels of salt. 

Pots lend an air of authenticity to the Lewis and Clark Salt-
works site, authenticated almost 100 years after the expedition.

But the actual location was only historically identified in the early 1900’s.  The expedition, camped in this area from January 2 to February 21, 1806, needed salt to preserve provisions for the winter and for their return trip back East.  They were out of salt when they arrived here.  They conveniently found “stone to build an over, wood to burn, fresh water to drink, elk to hunt, and seawater to boil… having a good concentration of salt.”  Life was good… except for the weather, which almost killed them!