Waterfalls and a Land of Beauty

My first full day in Portland is drawing to a close, and I can already tell that I've done myself an injustice in coming here for such a short period of time.  I started the day off with a little stroll along a walking/bike path that is close to my hotel.  It led me up to the Columbia River where I stopped to take a few photos.

As you can see, it was a pretty cloudy day, but the temperatures were mild and it wasn't raining on me, so I was perfectly content out there.  I back-tracked a bit and got on a section of the trail that actually leads right up the Highway 205 bridge to Vancouver.  I didn't walk that far up it since I didn't want to stray too far from home base at that point.

Shortly after I got back to my hotel Debbie came by and picked me up for a quick lunch before we went touring down the gorge that the mighty Columbia River has cut through the landscape.  There's a fairly significant highway that runs right along the river but in a move that I thoroughly approved of Debbie decided to pass up the direct route for a more scenic and twisty road.  (author's side note: Jay, if we find our way out here on motor vehicles I know a route to drive!)  Honestly I could have followed that road forever.  The scenery around here is captivating.  We stopped frequently along the route too so that I could exercise my camera.  For example, this shot came from an entirely random stop at the side of the road:

Our first intentional destination was Crown Point, an elevated piece of land that is home to Vista House, a small (but magnificent) building paying tribute both to the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape and the extraordinary effort that went into providing good roads through it.

I'm afraid that the photo above doesn't really do justice to the quality of that stained glass, which I was sorely tempted to pilfer.

Here's an example of the kind of view that Vista House's viewing platforms provided:

I think that Debbie lamented that lack of sunshine for our sightseeing excursion, but I wasn't bothered in the least.  I think there's a strange, serene beauty to mountains wrapped in mist.

As we journeyed further out from Vista House we started to come across numerous places to pull over and admire the waterfalls that would cascade down quite close to the road.  I'm not sure if there were so many of them that were close to the road because the road was specifically constructed that way, or if there are just THOUSANDS of the things back in the surrounding country and the road couldn't help but pass by a few.  The first of these was Latourell Falls:

I love a waterfall like that.  I commented at this point to Debbie that I'm just as keen to come admire a fall like Latourell as I am to go to Niagara Falls.  Niagara may be impressive in it's sheer size as it dominates an otherwise uninspired landscape, but something like Latourell is just a silver ribbon complimenting an entire package of natural beauty.  (Is it just me or am I being more poetic that usual?  Must be all that fresh air...)

We moved on to Bridal Veil Falls, which I happen to think is a pretty apt name for just about any substantial cascade of water.  If anyone reading this has ever been with me while I've been in the presence of a waterfall with a camera in my hand you know that I took a million pictures.  (Actually, 76 over the course of the afternoon, but I think that's a lot.)  I'll keep it brief and just show you the one of Bridal Veil:

From there we got back on the road and headed to Multnomah Falls, which at 542 feet serves as the crowning gem in this series of waterfalls.  I've seen pictures of the falls in the wintertime and they look truly spectacular.  I'm pretty sure I need to come back here once the snow starts flying.  Oh yeah, and they're pretty impressive in warmer weather too:

I actually took a quick jog up to the bridge you see in the center of this shot and it offered a pretty spectacular view as well.  It's obviously a pretty popular spot since even on a cloudy Thursday afternoon we had trouble finding parking.  Still, it didn't really seem all that crowded once we were there.  From the maps I saw of the surrounding region it looks like there are miles of hiking trails criss-crossing the landscape, so it's entirely possible that all the people were fairly well diffused throughout the region.

Ah, and be not deceived my friends, this was not the last waterfall to catch my eye!  We still managed to see Horsetail Falls.  At least I'm pretty sure that's the name... I'll double check that one.  Anyway, it looks something like this:

It was actually a nice looking pond at the bottom of that waterfall, and had it been even slightly warmer I would have been pretty tempted to go for a swim.  As it was I was sporting the awesome Multnomah Falls hoodie that I'd scored at the gift shop on our previous stop.

We continued on our way, with me still gawking at every hill, rock, tree, etc.  I really do love mountainous landscapes.  I've been having a great time catching up with my friend, but I worry that I'm not the best travelling company when the view outside catches my eye...

A short drive from the falls found us at Bonneville Dam, which serves as a major power generator for the area.  What was really spectacular about the dam though was that, this being the eco-friendly Northwest, they had taken great pains to ensure that the local fish population wasn't too put out by their damming up the river. Apparently many species of fish (salmon in particular, but not exclusively) are drawn to a nice fast current like that which is produced by water channeled out of a dam.  So, finding that they were already attracting the fish to the dam, they built them a kind of staircase up and around it.

Each rise is one foot higher than the previous one and provides a very natural path for the fish to climb up and over the dam and continue on their way.  What's really great here is that they've built some clear panels into a narrow point in the path so that they can count, with reasonable accuracy, the number of fish that are passing through, and they were nice enough to extend a few of these viewing points to the visitor's section:

It's a bit difficult to get a sense of scale here, but some of the salmon swimming past that window were HUGE!  It really was quite the spectacle.

While we were there we stopped by the local fish hatchery.  They had a similar viewing setup as the one shown above, minus the fast current, which housed a pair of truly massive sturgeon.  I will freely admit to being a bad estimate of size in most cases, but I would have put these monsters somewhere between 6-7 feet in length.  The one kept swimming right up to the window too, which was fantastic.

It started to rain pretty significantly just after we left the hatchery, so we returned to Portland.  We went out to a really good Mexican restaurant for dinner, which was a real treat for me since it's not every day that I'm able to get my hands on some authentic Mexican cuisine.

Well, that pretty much concludes my day.  As usual I have no idea what tomorrow holds, but I'm quite certain that it will be excellent whatever the case.  I hope this finds you all well and I'll check in again tomorrow with more tales of adventure.  Until then, good night.