Wild wind! Tempest and waves! On the coast at least. How Lewis and Clark hated Oregon! Today we avoided some of that dangerous weather and headed upstream which afforded us some unusual opportunities. During the morning, we motored up the lower Columbia as our photo instructor, Ian Strachan gave a lecture on photo basics. And Harry, ever entertaining, shared more stories about Lewis and Clark.
Soon we encountered the marvelous scenery of the Columbia River Gorge. We started with Rooster Rock, once known by a more colorful, descriptive name which rhymed. Next Crown Point was in view, towering more than 600 feet above the river. Impressive enough, but consider that floods once topped it by 50 feet! And at last the falls. Wakeena! Multnomah! Oregon has stately cliffs riven by many a lacy cataract. Washington has near to none. But that’s because of huge landslides, fallen from the Washington side, that once dammed the Columbia for years. Part of the legacy of these landslides is Bonneville Dam. It was built to inundate the rapids that are the rocky remains of the slide. And it was situated over an island that the landslide created.
We docked at Cascade Locks, once used to lift boats around the terrible Cascades of the Columbia. Boarding busses we were taken to the fish hatchery below the dam. It was fun to see the salmon produced by the hatchery, but oh my, the sturgeon! One fish kept there was as daunting as Tyrannosaur Sue–huge, and equally prehistoric. We also went for a tour of part of the dam. An Army Corp of Engineers guide led us over gigantic orange turbines and to the fish ladder of Bonneville.
And at last, we went to the Columbia River Interpretive Center. Here, we saw exhibits of salmon fishing on the Columbia through the ages, including the demonstration of a fish wheel. Even with an extra day, our time in the Gorge is too short. But it was our start experiencing the many interlocking layers of natural and cultural history that fill the Gorge!
