Bashful Falls

Mount Hood looms in the distance, visible from any high ground in Portland, weather permitting.  Its top glistens with snow, when you can see it through the clouds.  On our first visit to Portland, how could we resist getting a closer look?  So we headed out again up the Columbia River gorge, retracing our route up Interstate 84 to Hood River, where we turned south and drove past the fruit orchards into Mount Hood National Forest, where we had picked out a hike on flanks of the mighty mountain itself.

Our destination was Tamawanas Falls, a 109-foot waterfall on the east slope of Mount Hood.  We planned to do a simple out-and-back hike, but it is possible to build a loop of about five miles if you are so inclined.  Given that this is a short and relatively easy trail with a large and showy waterfall at the end, it’s a popular hiking destination.  A large parking area on the side of Oregon Highway 35 can accommodate dozens of vehicles, with overflow parking and portable toilets nearby.

After ponying up the $5 per vehicle day use fee, we set off from the well-marked trailhead onto the East Fork trail, numbered #650 in the National Forest’s scheme.  The trail passes an informational sign detailing the U.S. Forest Service’s innovative plan to improve fish habitat in 1998.  Prior to that, it was standard practice to remove fallen trees from streams, in the belief that barriers to navigation would prevent fish from migrating.  In 1998, the USFS tried a different approach, actually placing over 1,000 logs in the East Fork of the Hood River.  The logs actually helped prevent streambed erosion and slowed flood waters, which was actually more helpful to the fish population than keeping the streams unimpeded.

Within 100 yards of the trailhead, the East Fork trail crosses the East Fork of the Hood River on a narrow but sturdy bridge, anchored on one end by some impressively large logs.   Our luck with the Oregon weather was holding — though we had driven through some rain on the way there, we had a crisp, clear day by the time we started walking.

For the first half mile of the trail, the East Fork trail parallels Highway 35, slowly rising along a ridge.  The wide, well-groomed footbed was a new type of soil for us — a powdery gray volcanic ash soil, soft underfoot.  This is doubtless typical of the Mount Hood area, but was a new experience for us Southern hikers used to pine straw, leaf litter, or red clay under our boots.  Our Eastern volcanoes haven’t been active for around 200 million years, but Mount Hood is steaming merrily away (and the infamous Mount Saint Helens is only about 65 miles northwest of here).

At about the .5 mile mark, the East Fork trail continues to the north, and the Tamawanas Falls trail (#650A) branches off and heads west.  The Tamawanas Falls trail descends down the north side of the ridge, and soon crosses Cold Spring Creek on a log bridge.

From this point on, the trail is never far from Cold Spring Creek.  The trail gradually climbs for the next 1.1 miles, passing a few late summer wildflowers such as woodland beardtongue and fireweed, winding below huge Douglas firs, Western red cedars, and assorted hardwood trees.  But make no mistake, the evergreens are large and in charge here.

Woodland beardtongue

Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium)

Around .2 miles into the Tamawanas Falls trail, we came upon a short section of trail that had obviously been crossed by a landslide.  It was only about 50 yards wide and easy to navigate across.  The valley sloped uphill as we headed westward, with the creek beginning to drop in small but scenic cascades.

We soon came to a second, larger landslide, where the path narrowed a little but was still passable.  At about .9 miles, the Tamawanas Tie trail merged in from the north, where it winds its way up the ridge to Elk Meadows.  But that wasn’t the feature that caught the eye.  Instead, it was the massive landslide that engulfed the trail, forcing us to pick a path upward through the boulders and jagged rocks to rejoin the trail about 500 feet away.  I wouldn’t call it bouldering, but we were glad to have the hiking poles with us!

Second (small) landslide

Third (large) landslide

Navigating the large landslide was the most taxing part of the hike, but the payoff comes quickly.  About .1 mile after the landslide, Tamawanas Falls comes into view, and it’s a beauty.

The trail technically ends at an overlook near the fall, but it’s relatively easy to pick your way across the rocks toward the base.  However, there was a large crowd of people (probably around 20-30) who all had the same idea, and the sloping ground and jagged rocks made navigation a slow process.  Tamawanas Falls is about 40-45 feet wide, and with that volume of water comes a mighty amount of spray.  You can theoretically walk behind the fall, but the uneven terrain and soaking spray deterred most people, including  yours truly.  Instead, I partially crossed Cold Spring Creek to a small island about 50 yards downstream and set up my tripod to get some glamour shots.

The word “tamawanas” is from the Chinook concept of “friendly or guardian spirit,” though the Forest Service actually renamed the waterfall from its original name of Giffords Falls.  I’m not convinced that they got that right.  I don’t know the Chinook word for “bashful and uncooperative spirit,” but I’ll settle for calling this Bashful Falls.  I’d get positioned for a photo, then a huge cloud of spray would completely obscure the waterfall.  The spray would then clear, but my lens was then covered with water droplets.  I’d clean it off, and another cloud of spray would wash over me.  Then miraculously, the spray would clear, I’d wipe down my lens, and then the sun would disappear behind a cloud.  The light in the valley at that particular time was awful too, with the waterfall in shadow.  Bashful Falls flows to the north, which means the ridges on either side block the sun when you’re down on the valley floor.  I couldn’t get far enough away from the waterfall to avoid the spray, unless I chose to wade in the creek on the other side of the island, and the current made that an unattractive proposition.  So I took some lousy pictures, which I’ll share with you in a break from my usual careful curation of photos.

Honestly, this is the best that I could do at the time, and it has been Photoshopped nearly to death.

This was a very nice waterfall to experience, though.  The shifting spray was quite atmospheric, and a cool breeze whistled over the increasingly damp onlookers at the base.

After having a quick trail lunch, we retraced our steps to the parking lot, stopping for a brief time at a little cascade that was a more willing photographic subject.  The overall hike, according to the GPS track, was around 3.6 miles.  And, since we were in the neighborhood, we couldn’t resist driving up to the Timberline Lodge, the historic inn built by the Works Progress Administration from 1936-38.  The interior is quite striking for its low ceilings and the heavy feeling of the massive beams and posts.  We quite enjoyed the WPA art still onsite, particularly the carvings and the rugs and tapestries woven onsite.  And, of course, there’s that 11,245 foot volcano out the back door….

 

 

 

My new love: Cape Lookout

I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in my life, but one of the places I’ve never been is the Pacific Northwest. I’ve always wanted to go, though, so for this year’s vacation Chet and I decided on a trip to Oregon – specifically Portland with a side trip out to the coast. I had a great time, and really enjoyed pretty much every place we went, but I think the highlight for me was the Oregon Coast. There’s just something about driving along with the blue Pacific on one side of you and steep, spruce and fir covered mountains jutting up on the other side that can’t be beat. It’s majestic and beautiful and awe inspiring and so different from the scenery we have here.

Of course, we had to hike in this wonderland so we’d picked out a moderate hike in a stretch of coast just south of where we were staying. The historic Highway 101 threads its way south, passing through what seems like a new state park or state recreational area every few miles. The one we headed for was Cape Lookout State Park, which is 2000 or so acres of land including the entire Netarts Sand Spit to the north, the headland itself which juts two miles out into the Pacific and towers 400 feet above the surrounding beaches, and a gorgeous four mile stretch of sandy beach to the south heading towards Sand Lake. Cape Lookout is basically a chunk of basalt rock left over from the ancient lava flows that formed many of the islands and headlands along this coast.

There is a campground and recreation area on the north edge of the park towards Netarts Sand Spit, and the Oregon Coast Trail leads from there along a gradual 2.3 mile ascent to get to the top of the cape.  I really wanted to hike out to the very tip of the cape though, so we opted to drive up to the Cape Trail trailhead, which was at the top. The parking lot there was very roomy as the trail is pretty popular. We found a spot and parked near the port-a-potties. I only mention this to point out that while there are bathroom facilities here, they are primitive and at the time we were there anyway, were pronounced “gross” by one woman who’d just used one. I opted to take her word for it.

It had been very cold that morning. We hadn’t figured out the heating situation in the Airbnb we’d rented, so we woke up to a 40 degree cottage. Chet found the heat, so I did finally agree to get out from under the covers when it had warmed up to about 60, but once I’m cold, I tend to stay cold so I’d dressed in jeans and a light long sleeved sweater, plus a fleece jacket. Luckily,  I came to my senses before I headed out on the trail and changed into the wicking t-shirt I’d brought because I later learned that cold in the morning in Oregon does not mean cold all day!

The kiosk for the trail was at the far western edge of the parking lot, with a joint trail heading out from the southwest corner. About 100 yards along the trail, the Oregon Coast Trail splits off on the first of what appeared to be many many switchbacks that would lead you 1.8 miles down to the sandy beach below. We kept going straight so that we could reach the point.

As usual, we were hiking with a backpack, tons of water, food, and hiking poles. At first it seemed like the poles might have been overkill as the trail was fairly level, soft underfoot, and not rooty or rocky at all. In about 1/2 mile, there were gorgeous views down to the sandy beach and on south towards Sand Lake (actually a cove). Just past our first gasp-inducing viewpoint, I spotted a plaque on a boulder to the inland side of the trail. It commemorated those lost in the crash of a B-17 bomber in 1943. The story is that  the bomber was on coastal patrol on a very foggy day and the pilot mistook the fog-shrouded cape for a cloudbank. He flew right into the side of it. There was one survivor.

Besides the stunning beach views, this section also had several new-to-us flowers to puzzle over. We had little hope of identifying them on the spot, but took pictures and looked them up later. Candy Flower is in the same family as the “Spring Beauty”  we find in Alabama and is just as pretty. Pearly Everlasting actually does grow in Alabama, though I can’t say as I’ve ever noticed it. Just a little way past the plaque, the trail starts heading more steeply down and away from the southern views as it takes a couple of switchbacks down the north side towards Wells Cove.  This part of the trail was shadier than the first section, which was welcome because by this point I was pretty warm! We also spotted a few more unfamiliar plants, which we later identified as Salal (a blueberry like plant that the native Indians relied on to get them through the winter), rose twisted stalk  (a sort of Solomon’s seal),  thimble berry (sort of like a raspberry), and a type of hedge nettle. We also spotted some Alabama favorites – trillium and false Solomon’s seal.

Candy Flower

Pearly Everlasting

Salal

Rose Twisted Stalk

Hedge Nettle

Trillium

False Solomon’s Seal

At about the mile mark, the trail makes a hairpin turn to head back uphill. Right at the curve, there is a section of fence and beautiful views of Wells Cove, the Pacific Ocean, and north towards Three Arch Rocks and Cape Meares.

The trail headed up and around the rim of Wells Cove, with steep drop offs on one side down to where the waves were crashing into the rocks hundreds of feet below. After a bit, it also became very mucky. We passed a couple of groups making their way back and they told us the muck didn’t last for too much longer. One guy commented that his decision to wear clogs had not been a very good idea. I loaned one older gentleman my hiking pole to steady himself with as he crossed a particularly muddy few feet. There are a few sections of boardwalk that take you over some of the mud, but this was my least favorite section of the trail. It is not recommended for tennis shoes, flip flops, or clogs!

After the mud, the trail curved up and around  until our old friend the sandy beach came into view again. It was an easy walk from there with great views to the south and west. Here we were walking along the top of cliffs that dropped straight down to the water. I enjoyed watching the birds flying high over the water, but below me.  Soon we reached the very tip of the cape. There a smallish rocky outcropping provides a cleared area from which to look out onto the ocean. A bench provides a place for a couple of folks to sit and enjoy the view.  We sat on the rocks and enjoyed the view and our lunch. At other times of year, namely December to June, we hear that you get a great view of migrating whales from here. We’d missed all that and saw not one whale, but it was still a beautiful view out into the vast Pacific Ocean. As best as I could tell from later research, if you go west from here, the next land you’d hit would be Japan, or maybe one of the Kuril Islands, claimed by both Japan and Russia and somewhere around 2000 miles to the west.

The hike back to the car was uneventful, though it did provide us with lots of opportunities to admire the beautiful, rugged Oregon coast spread out before us. We put in a total of 4.6 miles, according to our GPS track. It might not have been the longest hike but it might have been the most scenic.

Just Gorge-ous: Dry Creek Falls, Mt. Hood National Forest

Did  you miss us?  For the first time in three years of blogging, we went a week without posting anything.  But we had a good excuse — we were hiking in a new (to us) part of the country, in the Pacific Northwest to be exact.  We’ve been trying to vacation in areas of the country in which we’ve spent little or no time, and the PNW (as the cool kids call it) came highly recommended.   So off we went to Portland, Oregon!

It probably won’t surprise you to read that we did some research on hiking opportunities in the area, and of course there were practically countless options, with national forests, state forests, state parks, and city parks all within easy reach.  Yet one of our first hikes was to a place that popped up in my Facebook feed, when a friend shared a link to a Buzzfeed article on “16 of the Most Photogenic Hikes on the West Coast.”  Just for grins I perused the article to see if any were near Portland, and it turns out that Dry Creek Falls was a good candidate for us — not too long, very scenic, not too difficult, and in the Columbia River Gorge.  And, a little more research turned up an irresistible reason to take this hike — the bulk of it is on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Most hikers in the eastern U.S. have at least a passing acquaintance with the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200 trail stretching from Georgia to Maine.  The AT is a National Scenic Trail, established as one of the first two trails of this type by Congress in 1968.  The Pacific Crest Trail is the other one, and the AT, the PCT, and the Continental Divide Trail are considered the triple crown of North American long distance hiking.  The PDT is over 2,600 miles long, spanning the states of California, Oregon, and Washington.  One end is at the U.S-Mexico border, and the other is at the U.S.-Canada border.  It’s legendary.

Our trip began with a drive out of Portland eastward on I-84 through the Columbia River Gorge.  Famed for its scenery, the gorge didn’t disappoint, with a surprisingly wide blue river flowing westward to the Pacific Ocean between towering ridges of stately conifers.  We stopped in the town of Cascade Locks to lay in a supply of trail snacks, then made our way to the trailhead, which has a large paved parking lot off the ramp to the Bridge of the Gods (yep, that’s what is called — it’s a highway bridge over the Columbia River, named for a landslide-formed natural bridge around 1450 AD).  There’s parking there for about 15 cars, and all slots were occupied so we retraced our steps and parked in another hiker’s lot under the bridge.   It was a short walk back to the trailhead, which has information kiosks, a nice large restroom building, and on this particular day it had a Trailhead Ambassador.  A lady was there to answer any questions and offer advice, and she asked us to brush our boots prior to going on the trail to avoid spreading seeds from any non-native plants.  She looked us over and said we looked like we knew what we were doing (we were in our usual overkill mode with daypacks, boots, multiple layers including raingear, and hiking poles – for a four-mile hike).  Well, thank you, madam.  We dress to impress.

The trail begins across the road from the eastern side of the trailhead, and unceremoniously begins with a quick climb to gain some altitude before crossing under I-84.  It’s common on these long-distance trails to cross over or under major roads, and sometimes the route even shares the road shoulder for a few miles, but my limited experience on the AT has been in wilderness areas, so it was amusing to be on a National Scenic Trail with semi trucks roaring by above my head.

 

After a road walk of about 100 yards, the trail continues on a gravel road to a winter trailhead, from which the PCT plunges into the woods.  We took the route south, which wound through an open forest with very gradual elevation gain for about .6 miles.  This stretch of forest was particularly open because the devastating Eagle Creek fire started in this very location almost a year to the day before our hike.  The fire burned nearly 50,000 acres, and a year later there are still roads and many trails closed as a result.  The trailhead ambassador told us that there are still smoldering embers down in the rootballs of some fallen trees!  Tourism in the Gorge has really suffered as a result, so she was particularly happy to see hikers on the open trails in the area.  The really large trees have particularly thick bark, so most of them have shrugged off the damage, and a year later the understory is in full recovery mode, with stands of fireweed springing up in lovely late summer bloom.

 

Fireweed

Just over one mile into the hike, the trail crosses a powerline cut, with well-marked signage on either side.  The next .9 mile or so gradually climbs and crests a low ridge, into a cool and quiet hollow with ferns and wildflowers abounding.  At the end of this stretch, we reached a trail junction, with a narrow dirt road leading to the southeast and the PCT continuing over a wooden bridge to the northeast.

 

We followed the sign to Dry Creek Falls, and in around .2 miles we arrived at a narrow canyon with high rock walls on three sides and a 74-foot waterfall spilling over a relatively low spot.  There are actually additional drops not visible from the bottom of the waterfall that make its cumulative height around 230 feet.  There’s no path upward from here, and the only way to see the upper drops would require a cross-country hike and rappelling, so the 74-feet that we could see were more than adequate.

 

This is a popular hike, or at least it was on Labor Day weekend, so there were many folks there posing for selfies.  There’s really not much of a plunge pool and Dry Creek itself is rather small as it flows away from the falls.  We took a little while to rest, have our trail lunch, and look over the impressive canyon walls and the machinery left over from when the Dry Creek was used as a water source for the city of Cascadia Locks.

 

We retraced our route back to the PCT and returned to the trailhead, covering 4.27 miles in this hike according to our GPS track.

Herb robert

As for the botanical aspects of the hike, we saw our familiar maidenhair fern (though it was probably a Western species), the aforementioned fireweed, and one other wildflower that might be herb robert.  I can’t claim to be very confident in my identification of Western wildflowers, but the blooming time, location, and overall appearance fit the description.  We also saw another yellow wildflower and something that looked like our Christmas fern, but that particular species doesn’t grow in Oregon.

All in all, this was a great introduction to the trails of the Columbia River Gorge.  The waterfall was very pretty, and the hike was a manageable length, beautifully maintained and easy to follow.  And best of all, we logged 2 miles on the iconic Pacific Crest Trail — just 2,657 miles to go to complete our segment hike!