Breathtaking views along the Columbia Gorge

Editor’s Pick: J. Williams
In: Uncategorized
Tuesday June 24, 2008
2 Comments      

This travel diary excerpt is from Travelin’ with Charlie blog which is an occasional travelogue, philosophical and spiritual journal of a middle-aged Oregonian widow, recently retired, who is trying out life as a fulltime RVer with her Golden Retriever, Charlie.

 

 

 

My brother Tom and I drove out to the Gorge with Charlie today and took some short hikes to a couple of the waterfalls. We took the Historic Columbia River Highway out of Troutdale, following the Sandy River south until it heads east towards Corbett.

 

We stopped briefly at Crown Point and Vista House for the amazing views east up the Gorge. There were clouds and haze but plenty of green. This view is breathtaking no matter what the weather, although rainy, windy days are probably not the best time to visit this area.We stopped at Latourell Falls along the Old Highway and took the short mostly paved trail up to a viewpoint and then down to the falls and stream. Charlie went wading and had a drink of icy cold mountain stream but he didn’t stay in the water long.Our next stop up the road was Bridal Veil Falls. Again we took the 2/3rd mile trail, partially paved, to the waterfall overlook. If you have never been to the Columbia River Gorge with its 77 beautiful waterfalls on the Oregon side alone, you have missed an absolutely breathtaking (in more ways than one) experience. Some of the falls are easily accessible but others require a fairly strenuous hike. You can learn more at this website: http://www.a2zgorge.info/area/columbia_gorge_waterfalls.htm.Since we’re both badly out of shape we only did the two falls but I had enough foresight to bring my camera and so will share a few photos I took today. In addition to the waterfalls, many of the wildflowers were out in abundance. Hopefully this will make up for my recent blog posts without photos.

Having traveled a good part of our country — though admittedly not seeing every beautiful thing there is to see across this wide land — I still contend that overall Oregon has one of the most beautiful and varied landscapes of any of the 45 states I’ve visited. Feel free to disagree but you’ll have a hard time convincing me otherwise.
Last night, after helping put on a wonderful event for people who volunteer in a wide variety of roles at my parish and seeing many dear friends, I came home to a stunning sunset — glowing fireclouds with deep smokey-rose centers — and a full silver moon coming up in the east. Sadly I did not have my camera when I took Charlie for his last walk of the night. Cameras never capture the beauty, anyway; they produce very limited and incomplete imitations of reality.
So once again God has sent me reminders of how much He loves me, how much He loves all of us. Whenever I get down, if I look expectantly around, I will always find those reminders in nature, in people.

TravelinLady.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

— Visit all of her travels and life’s reflections on Travelin’ with Charlie 

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