Corps of Discovery Trip - Day 8 - May 28, 2026

 GOODBYE TO THE GORGE; PLATEAU AND PLANETARIUM; WINDING DOWN AT THE WINERY 

It was in the low 60’s when we drove east on I-84 this morning. By the time we got about four miles east of Hood River, it was already in the low 70’s. This is where we hit the hamlet of Mosier, and left the interstate to drive the old Highway 30 toward The Dalles. This road is steep and twisty all the way to the Rowena Crest Overlook up on the Mosier Plateau. The hills were covered with wildflowers, such as Fernlead Yarrow, Cornflower, and Poppies.

On the way up, there is a scenic overlook at Memaloose State Park.

At Rowena Crest, you can get a good sense of the scope of the glacially created Columbia Gorge. Placards up there describe how a massive Ice Age lake half the size of today’s Lake Michigan covered 3000 square miles in Idaho and Montana. When rising water levels caused ice dams to break about 15,000 years ago, a 1000 foot wall of water came powering down through what is now the gorge. This, and several subsequent floods, created today’s Columbia River.

Our next stop was the Columbia River Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles. It’s got some nice historical materials on the construction of the original highway. We even found an old photo from 1900 of Karen’s favorite basalt column: Beacon Rock. 

Just outside the Discovery Center, we passed a brush fire along I-84. The air temperature was now in the 80’s.

Before leaving The Dalles, I had to see the Rock Fort. It is a spot along the river where the Corps of Discovery camped for a few days after shooting the rapids at Cielo Falls and The Dalles - a feat that not even the Native Americans were willing to do (the Lewis and Clark journals describe the locals standing on the banks in awe as the crazy explorers hurtled down the river). The ‘fort’ is located along the waterfront in an industrial area of town and gives little indication of its past.

We crossed the river into Washington and went east on Highway 14. We made a quick stop at an overlook near what used to be Cielo Falls, and caught a look at Mt. Jefferson before heading north on Highway 97 toward Goldendale.

Highway 97 rises quickly up to a plateau high above the river into rolling hills and farmland. At Goldendale State Park, there is an observatory. The observatory was closed today (but the restrooms were open!) and we had the park to ourselves - except for a curious deer who was checking out a truck belonging to a crew repairing a nearby cell tower.

Back down on Highway 14 we saw a sign marked, ‘Stonehenge’. There’s no way we could pass this up, so we took a right turn down toward the river. A local landowner (and builder of the Maryhill Museum a few miles west) had visited England during WW1 in 1918, where he visited the real Stonehenge. Inspired by this, and determined to pay homage to local soldiers from Klickitat County who were killed in the war, when he returned home, he had a replica built on a cliff high above the river.

We got back on Highway 14 eastbound toward Walla Walla, WA. By this time, the temperature was in the 90’s and thunderstorms were forming in the distance. 

The topography of the gorge changes pretty dramatically once you get to The Dalles. Lush forests on the surrounding mountains give way to drier grasslands with lots of volcanic outcroppings. The further east you travel, the drier it gets. The section between Roosevelt, WA and Umatilla, OR has spectacular buttes on either side of the river. They look like an unevenly terraced wall of towers. The vertical walls are a black basaltic color and the slopes between are a mix of green and brown grasses that glowed in the late afternoon light (or, was I hallucinating from too many hours on the road?).

Just before dropping back into Oregon again, we pulled off the highway to visit Hat Rock. This was named by William Clark when the explorers passed through. It is said that Clark climbed the rock and got a clear view of the high peaks of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams. Sometime later and further away, Richard Dreyfus climbed a similar, but decidedly larger, rock in order to get a clear look at some space aliens.

We pulled into our lakefront bungalow at the Eritage Resort and Winery just in time for some dinner and local wine.

NEXT: Now that it’s warming up, we’re taking a tour of the Pendleton Woolen Mills.

Corps of Discovery Trip - Day 7 - May 27, 2026

 APPLE CIDER DONUT; HOOD VIEWS; I SAT ON MY OTTERBOX

We drove through the upper Hood River Valley this morning. This area features several wineries and fruit orchards along Highway 35. We stopped at Packer Orchards for some rhubarb jam and an apple cider donut. They had every kind of fruit-based baked goods you can imagine, along with a full selection of ice cream, jellies, jams and preserves.

Out in the parking lot, we looked to the north and had a clear view of Mt. Adams on the Washington side of the Columbia River.

Continuing south, we drove up and out of the valley into the alpine forests surrounding Mt. Hood. At the park ranger station, we caught an early glimpse of Mt. Hood off in the distance, with its peak shrouded in a halo of clouds.

We made a quick stop at Trillium Lake, where we could see Mt. Hood from the south looking north.

At the base of the mountain, we visited the Timberline Lodge. It was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1936 and still maintains much of its original character. In what was once the dining hall, and is now a conference room, are original ‘sports’ murals made from linoleum hand-carved and painted. Much of the original hand-built furniture is also still in use.

There were a few hardy souls still doing some spring skiing up there and it was cold enough (and very windy) that we decided to get back to lower elevations.

On the way back to Hood River, we stopped at the Tamanawas Falls trailhead. The temperature there was in the low 70’s, which is the warmest we’ve had so far.

Karen took today off from hiking and relaxed at the trailhead while I made the four mile round trip hike.

The trail follows the East Fork of the Hood River for a while, and then heads uphill following Cold Springs Creek to the falls. It’s moderately steep, with very uneven rocky terrain, especially near the falls. A talus slope leads up to the base and the rocks are covered in moss and saturated by mist from the falling water.

I made my way to a large rock for a better photo angle and sat down to prepare to take the Photo of The Year. As I sat, I realized my phone was in my back pocket. It was wedged between me and a pointy little rock outcropping I had sat upon. My phone case is pretty heavy duty and it did protect my phone. However, that rocky protuberance scratched and dented the camera lens protector section of the case. The picture below is the last picture I took with my camera today. It’s time for a new case.

After the hike we drove back through some of the orchards and vineyards on the way to dinner in Hood River, where the temperature was in the low 80’s!

Before dinner, we walked next door to tour the grounds of the historic Columbia Gorge Hotel. It is said that many famous people came to stay here soon after the original highway was completed in the early 20th century. Silent film stars Rudolph Valentino and Clara Bow were here. 

Below is a photo of Wah Gwin Gwin Falls cascading down to the Columbia River between this hotel and our hotel (in the background).

NEXT: East to Walla Walla

Corps of Discovery Trip - Day 6 - May 26, 2026

 DUBOG; ANOTHER “THIS IS NOT A HIKE” DAY; BONNEVILLE DAM

There’s nothing like a hearty breakfast to start the day. Karen found us one in the town of Cascade Locks, just a few miles west of Hood River. The aptly named Bridgeside diner serves up old fashioned roadside fare designed to fill you up. Located ‘Down Under the Bridge Of Gods’, it was a convenient spot to get started on the day’s activities.

The bridge spans the Columbia River at one of the most narrow sections of the gorge. Its name, Bridge of the Gods, is an homage to the oral traditions of the local Native American tribes. Their stories tell of an ancient time when they could walk across the river on a land bridge.

These legends are given some credence by archaeological evidence of a massive landslide in the gorge sometime around the 11th century A.D. The slide stopped the river completely for some time, until it eventually formed a new path (more on this later).

We drove across the bridge into Washington and turned west on Highway 14, toward Beacon Rock State Park.

Beacon Rock was described by William Clark in 1805, when he was exploring a route around the rapids that used to exist in this part of the gorge before modern dams controlled the water flow. He first called it Beaten Rock, then later changed it to Beacon Rock. It’s a huge basaltic monolith on the Washington bank of the river.

In 1915, a man named Henry Biddle bought the rock for $1 in order to protect and preserve it. He also constructed a trail (completed in 1918) to the top by carving a path that winds and switchbacks 680 vertical feet from the trailhead to the summit. His family eventually donated the rock to the State of Washington in the 1930’s.  In an interesting twist of historical kismet, Biddle was a descendant of Nicolas Biddle, who was the first person to edit (in 1814) the original journals of Lewis and Clark’s expedition.

Given all this exciting information, we had no other choice: we had to climb it!

We grabbed our hiking poles and began the ascent. Most of this trail consists of ledges carved into the side of the rock. Where the ledges end, there are flying mini-bridges that span the gaps with wooden planks. In many places you can look straight up and see the 52 switchbacks disappearing into the sky.

Karen did a great job on this challenging walk and we completed the two mile round trip with no problems. Along the way we had stunning views of the river, including Horsetail Falls to the west on the Oregon side, and Bonneville Dam to the east spanning the river.

Once we finished up our walk, we drove back eastward on Highway 14 to the Bonneville Dam visitor center. We got there just in time for a guided tour from the park ranger. On this Tuesday-after-a-holiday, the place was almost deserted and there were only four other people on our tour.

We saw the giant hydraulic turbines (and we went down into the turbine room and walked on a couple of them), and learned some interesting things about the dam and its relationship with the river.

For instance, there is a high peak just downriver on the Washington side called Table Mountain. Geologists have determined that, sometime in the past, there was an earthquake and a gigantic landslide that brought down half of Table Mountain into the gorge. The slide completely blocked the river for a number of years (remember the Native American legends?), and eventually shifted the course of the river about a mile to the south.

By the time Lewis and Clark came through, the river was a raging series of non-navigable rapids. It remained that way until Bonneville (and others) Dam was built in the 1930’s to control the flow and allow for safe travel and commerce on the river.

We learned that the Army Corps of Engineers also spends a lot of time working to preserve the ability of migrating fish, especially salmon, to get both up and down the river past the dam and its power generating turbines. The fish ladder systems continue to be refined. One highlight of our tour was going down into the dam and watching, from below water level, the fish swimming up the ladder.

After walking up into the clouds on Beacon Rock, and descending more than 50 feet below the surface of the river at Bonneville Dam - not to mention both the physical and educational exhilaration of these pursuits - we headed back to Hood River for a short rest and dinner.

NEXT: The Fruit Loop - Highway 35 South Toward Mt. Hood

Bonus photo: Bicycle trail tunnel at Mitchell Point, high above I-84 near Hood River