Hiking

Last Sunday we went out to the Multnomah Falls area and did some tromping around. I hadn't been out there in a pretty long time and had kind of forgotten just how beautiful it is. Now that I've been reminded, I'm already planing my next trip out.

The Falls area is about 30 to 40 minutes East of Portland, and we started at Lower Oneonta Creek, it was so cool because it starts out as this broad flat creek bed and then it narrows down down suddenly with cliffs on either side. This caused a ginormus log jam that you have to negotiate to get to the falls, once you've passed that you continue up the creek and right now the water gets about chest high on average heighted people. Now as we'd only originally planed to go to Multnomah Falls, we were a little less than prepared to get into water that deep, as all the Multnomah paths are paved and not in water(very cold water by the way). Unfortunately we were forced to halt and turn back, because none of us wanted to be that wet, and not have any towels or spare clothes.

Some pictures of we we did see.









Once we were finished playing there we headed down the highway to the Horsetail Creek Trail, now it said it was only .7 miles but holy crikes it is ALL up hill and it's pretty darn steep, for a non-hiker. I'm thinking hiking might not be a bad hobby to pick up though, the views were totally worth the sore muscles. On the trail we did come across Middle Oneonta Falls and we had a pretty good view from the bridge.



Of course Tim(crazy/wild man) leaped over a very not safe non-trail to actually stand at the top of the falls.



We got up to what must have been the top of the trail and there were incredible views.





The next on the trail was Ponytail Falls, I really liked this one because there is a big shallow cave behind it that you can go through, and the pool is really pretty.





After Ponytail the trail started heading back down so it was much easier, and it comes out at Horsetail Falls.




Now that we were all nice an tuckered out, it was time to head to Multnomah Falls, we only went up to the bridge though.





After all that it was time to head home, with one quick stop at the Vista House. Funny thing, it's not actually a house, it's an observatory that opened in 1918. The engineer who supervised the Columbia River Highway Project wanted it built there because there is a fantastic views up and down the gorge. So out in the middle of nowhere there is a big Art Nouveau style domed structure, that I remember my mom or aunt saying Grandpa Glenn referred to as "the million dollar toilet". It is a gorgeous building though and the view is spectacular.