Adventure Along the Columbia River

 

On the weekend before picking up our new puppy, Pyewacket- Hubbs, Fams, and I took a trip to Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR. We went along the Columbia River and did some tourist activities like Voodoo Donuts and the International Rose Test Garden in Portland.

After looking at the weather forecast - we decided to car-camp and got a KOA cabin at the Cascade Locks. Normally we would tent, but because we had rain coming and also because we planned to be doing a lot of hiking / walking and exploring the area, we opted to have a comfy (and dry) home-base.

We stopped all along US Hwy 30 and Frontage Rd to check out the waterfalls. We walked around at Multnomah Falls, Horsetail Falls, went through Oneonta Tunnel, Wahkeena Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls. We also roamed around at Vista House and took a detour to the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. They have sea lions there! They come all the way up the river to eat feast on the salmon at the dam. There is a whole lot of information (both good and bad) on the sea lions at Bonneville elsewhere on the internet so I'll leave you to it if you are interested.

Overall we stuck to the easier hikes so that we could do so many trips and also for our dachshund Fams who is now a senior dog and isn't up for steep 10 mile climbs anymore. He may think he is...but I didn't want to have to carry him back, so just in case we kept the walks pretty comfortable.

We did do a little dog-lifting at the log jam. It was okay for him to climb up, but too steep for him to get back down. Hubbs and I even had to literally climb up the side of some fallen rocks and trees to get to the basin on the other side. I found a dead creature, perhaps a small deer, in the basin. It had probably died a week or so earlier during one of the storms.

It was on Sunday, on our way back from our trip, that we picked up Pye and brought her home with us. Our next trip down will be at least the four of us!

Pics below!



Portland Rose Garden - Borrowing a hat :-)

Beer!

Vista House with Hubbs and Fams

Bonneville Dam

Log jam below a waterfall

Steep ferns

 

Trail going UP

 

Forest renews itself

 

Huge trees and boulders!

Pink snail at Bridal Falls (favorite picture)

 BONUS PICTURE -

11 week old Pyewacket hard at work in my office shredding some dried leaves and a chewstick.