Mount Hood, Multnomah Falls, Wahclella Falls

 Day 53: July 15, 2021

We head to Mt Hood, see Multnomah Falls, and hike to Wahclella Falls

Mount Hood

It never fails to elicit gasps when you’ve been driving along and suddenly this huge mountain comes into view and looms over your horizon line. As we turned to cross the Hood River Bridge, we had a hard time taking our eyes off her.  

It’s 17 miles to this bridge from where we are camping. I’ve never seen so many single man sculls as on that drive. Many vehicles with one, many more with 2, 3, or even 4 sculls on top. I’ve not seen any on the Columbia River; it’s been a bit choppy since we’ve been here. I was just wondering where they are going…enquiring minds and all that….CORRECTION: these were not single man sculls; they were sea kayaks. It all makes so much more sense now!

Once we got over to the Oregon side of the river, we watched Hood get bigger and bigger and take up more of our sight lines. She (so far at least) keeps snow on her flanks all year round. It’s the only place in the United States where you can ski all year round (but if you look up Google photos, you will see snow all over the mountain in the summer, not just in isolated areas as it is now). And another thing, we noticed that anytime there was a snow park, it was spelled SNO-PARK. What’s up with that??

Mount Hood from the Hood River Bridge. Once we got into Oregon, there were orchards and fruit stands all over the valley. There were small mountains of white boxes that we finally figured out were for the harvest of the fruit. (Not beehives; it didn’t make sense, but they kind of reminded me of beehives)

I was told that an Oregon Corvette Club was doing a slow drive around scenic spots in Oregon and they let the Lamborghini owners come too. They rented out a huge part of the parking lot of the Timberline Lodge and they were all parked en masse, making it next to impossible to find parking! The owners, meanwhile, were inside the Lodge, having lunch. (Later, as we were about to leave, I overheard two women “in the know” who were discussing the “best meal I ever had ‘out’” and each one said it was in the dining room of the Timberline Lodge.) We had our lunch at the Public House in Government Camp, not far from this area.

As we were hiking UP the mountain, the snowboarders who just finished their runs were coming off …

Skiers and Snowboarders shared this run. We started watching from near the finish but soon enough realized that they had started WAY UP on the mountain—it was a nice long ride. Everyone seemed as if they were doing it just for fun but there were multiple vans in the parking lot for various racing teams. 

Looking up over the roof of the Timberline Lodge and across to Mount Jefferson.

Unfortunately, someone had to be brought down off the slope. Hope s/he is ok.

Skiers headed for lunch after their runs—in MID-JULY!!

The Timberline Lodge

Lovely mosaic just inside the front door

Built during the WPA days

Those two on the couch have the best seats in the house!

The sign for the bar at the Lodge; I just liked it

Speaking of dogs….these two cuties were chill just hanging out with no obvious humans around. Dogs are not supposed to be on the trails or in any facilities but they were plentiful around the Lodge and in the parking areas. VERY PLENTIFUL. As a dog-lover, it did my heart good; as a pet owner, it significantly restricted what one could do in the National Parks and Forests.

Wahclella Falls Hike

Tanner Creek

A small waterfall along the path to Wahclella Falls; fellow hikers assured us that this was not THE waterfall!

Find all three people in this photo. Where is Dan? Where is Waldo?

Ok. This IS Wahclella Falls. Pretty cool.

Heading back along Tanner Creek; eventually this water will end up in the Columbia River

Multnomah Falls

I always wanted to see Multnomah Falls. But wow. What a tourist place. People EVERYWHERE. Including me.

Florals

Just because they were pretty!

Possibly weld in the morning sun

Common thistle

Giant Hogweed

One more thing…

We experienced something new (to us) on this trip. I love it. Dan hates it. When we go out to eat, which we do a couple of times a week, most of the time they have us just scan the QR code on the table for the menu. Often when the wait staff comes over to take our order, Dan will still be trying to get the app to scan the code, never mind comparing meal options. It’s comical to hear him muttering. I accused him of sounding like an old man, but I was able to solve his issue today: the code was on a slant and his phone didn’t recognize it until you put it parallel to the camera on the phone. Then it worked fine. He may or may not come around to this new way of doing things. (I love it because the menu can easily evolve, prices can change, there’s a printing cost savings, no germs passed along, etc). Stay tuned….

Tomorrow we head to Coeur d’Alene. Stay tuned!