Columbia River Gorge

Mt. Hood as seen from Timberline Lodge.

During our smoky four-day stay on the banks of the mighty Columbia River we have, for the first time on this trip, tip-toed across a distinct but unseen line that separates the cool, moist, groovy “West Coast” from the vast, dry, decidedly-less-hip expanse of “flyover land” that we have spent the last two weeks crossing. The two areas are distinct from one another in climate, geography, culture and politics.

With the Oregon Trail Emigrants in mind, Betsy has taken to calling “flyover land” “rollover land”; noting that few have wanted to stop there, then or now.

From central California north to the Canadian border the line of demarcation between “rollover land” and the “West Coast” is the Cascade Mountain Range.

Deep below the earth’s surface the Pacific Plate and North American Plate are colliding in slow motion and this collision has created the Cascades that include a string of volcanoes; from Lassen Peak in central California to Mt. Rainier in Washington. Mt. Hood, Oregon’s highest point, last erupted just a few years before Lewis and Clark arrived.

The Cascades trap the moist air from the Pacific, creating arid deserts to the east and fertile farmlands on the west, including the Willamette Valley that the Oregon Trail emigrants were seeking.

The mountains are also a formidable barrier to travel, even today. From California to Canada there is only one break in this barrier; the mighty Columbia River Gorge.

Not that long ago, in the last Ice Age, a huge lake backed up into Rollover Land behind a massive dam of rock and ice. As the earth began to warm the pressure behind the dam increased and it eventually broke, sending an epic flood of ice, rock, water and debris ripping toward the sea and gouging out the break in the Cascades now known as the Columbia River Gorge.

It is not a coincidence that the Lewis and Clark expedition; the Oregon Trail emigrants; and Oregon’s first east-west highway; all ended up crossing the Cascades here.

Before a series of dams were built on the Columbia beginning in the 1930s the gorge was known for its rapids and it was for these “cascades” in the river that the surrounding mountains were named. 

Lewis and Clark cautiously paddled through here and the first emigrants floated their wagons through, often with disastrous results.

In 1846 an enterprising early emigrant named Sam Barlow blazed an overland route around the southern base of Mt. Hood and charged a toll for its use. Either way, these last 100 miles or so of the Oregon Trail were widely considered to be the most treacherous and difficult of the entire trip.

Because it is open to the Pacific fierce winds often blow through the gorge and, with the river now dammed and effectively made into a huge, linear lake the area has become a mecca for windsurfers.

However, during our first two days here there was little or no wind. That was unfortunate not only for the wind surfers but also for us, because the wind might have helped to break up the thick smoke that wafted through the gorge from a large fire that has been burning in the forests just south of here.

Yes, that is the midday sun.

Ever since we saw the butter sculpture of Abraham Lincoln at the Iowa State Fair we have been following, off and on, U.S. 30; the Lincoln Highway that first linked the country from coast to coast 100 years ago. While the Lincoln Highway is roughly coterminous with present day U.S. 30 from Philadelphia to Wyoming it diverges there to go to San Francisco on a route that is now closely tracked by I-80. However, at that juncture near Rock Springs, Wyoming, U.S. 30 breaks off and heads northwest to Portland by closely following the Oregon Trail route.

Thus, we have formed a close bond with U.S. 30 that began all the way back at the Iowa State Fair and it was a very cool serendipity when we discovered that a five-mile section of U.S. 30 has been made into a hike and bike trail just a few miles from the state park where we are staying.

This particular section of the highway, built before the river was dammed, had to traverse the cliffs high above the river and what is now Interstate 84. Even with the smoky conditions the trail afforded us some great views.

Perhaps the coolest thing about this trail is that it crosses that invisible but distinct line of demarcation between “rollover land” and the “West Coast”. From Wasco County on the east that voted for Romney to Hood River County on the west that voted for Obama; from sage to pine; from dry to wet; from square to hip.

To emphasize this transition and that we have, finally, arrived at the “West Coast”; it rained on us on the west side of our bike ride, but was dry on the east.

We’ve really enjoyed our initial venture into West Coast territory, traversing and sampling products along Hood County’s “Fruit Loop” – a series of vegetable and fruit stands – as well as the products of all four breweries in the uber-cool city of Hood River.

We also drove up to tour the historic Timberline Lodge at the ski resort on Mt. Hood (a WPA project) and followed Sam Barlow’s alternate route into what are now the eastern suburbs of Portland; in Multnomah County that voted nearly 4 to 1 for Obama. 

It is hard to overstate the importance of Multnomah County in the politics and culture of Oregon. Romney won every county east of the Cascades yet Obama won the statewide vote by nearly 12 percentage points. That's because more than 28 percent of the votes cast for Obama in Oregon came from Multnomah County. In fact, if the lopsided wins for Obama in Multnomah and Washington County - which includes the suburbs of Hillsboro and Beaverton, just west of Portland - were excluded from the statewide vote, Romney would have won Oregon by more than two points.

There was some excitement along the Barlow Route because we were, coincidentally and not all that happily, caught up in the annual 200-mile “Hood to Coast” relay run.

We did not go all the way to Oregon City – the “official” end of the Oregon Trail. We are going to save that for a special celebration next week. Instead we turned back east – on U.S. 30 of course – to take in some of the many waterfalls and other “gorge-eous” sites along this beautiful highway.

On our final day here in the Columbia River Gorge we toured the Bonneville dam and watched a barge loaded with wood chips bound for a Portland paper mill pass through the Cascade Locks. The barge had begun it journey in Lewiston, Idaho and it would take it eight days, bypassing 11 dams on the Columbia, to reach Portland. 

Entering the lock the barge full of a wood chip towered above us.

This is the view as it left the lock and continued its voyage downstream to Portland.

Bonneville was the first of those 11 dams on the Columbia to be built. Just like Timberline Lodge it was a WPA project that FDR was on hand to dedicate when it was completed in 1938.

Betsy reflects on the pros and cons of hydroelectric power and the damming of a mighty river like the Columbia.

One of the coolest things to see at the dam is the fish ladder that several species of salmon, steelhead trout and other types of fish use to bypass the dam as they return to their spawning areas further up the river.

Because the electricity-generating turbines in the dams kill many fish there is also a fish hatchery on-site and we toured that as well; where we saw Herman the Sturgeon, all 10 feet of this 70-year-old creature. Sturgeon are said to be a direct link to pre-historic times; in effect, a living dinosaur. Herman looked the part.  

Fortunately we had to pass through Hood River on the way home so we stopped in for a pint or two at Full Sail and finished the day with an excellent presentation by an Oregon State Parks ranger on her 2012 thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, which crosses the Columbia River at Cascade Locks.

Was the serendipity of this program about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail a sign from God that Dave should do it?

We know we still have a lot of Oregon to see, but so far it is more than living up to our high expectations.

Today we are moving into the Portland area for a five-day stay that will include the state fair in Salem, an end-of-the-Oregon-Trail celebration in Oregon City and, of course, a bicycle/light-rail trip (or two) into Portland; the city with the most breweries in the United States.