A Little Adventure

In the morning when we woke up, the wind was blowing a little bit and much to our dismay, one of the other campers was smoking a cigar. We ended up smelling cigar smoke all morning. That wasn’t too pleasing, but it somehow seemed appropriate to top off our Cascade Locks experience. We quickly gathered our stuff and left. We will look for a different place to stay the next time we visit the Columbia River Gorge.

We started the day of hiking going up to see Wahclella Falls. It appeared that not many people stop to see it, because it really isn’t signed until after you get off the freeway. This hike was a loop trail (what Scott calls a lollipop loop) about 2 miles long. The falls were really beautiful. These were one of the better falls that we saw on the trip. The sun wasn’t up far enough yet to ruin the photos, so Scott spent too much time taking pictures. Milo eventually became restless and cold, so we headed back to the car.

Our next destination was to see Horsetail Falls. We pulled into the parking lot and took the requisite photo of Horsetail Falls which is interesting, but not spectacular. We then put on our hiking shoes and continued on about .2 miles further to see Ponytail Falls. Ponytail Falls is very beautiful as well as fun. You see the trail takes you right underneath Ponytail Falls which is pretty cool. Milo certainly enjoyed that part. We continued up the trail and crossed the Oneonta Gorge. Scott was pushing to see Triple Falls. Monica was already tired from not sleeping well and wanted to stop several times before we made it to Triple Falls. She did manage to push on with a bit of encouragement from Scott. When we finally made it to Triple Falls the sunlight was shining brightly on the falls and made the picture taking a futile endeavor. The falls weren’t really that beautiful…interesting, but not beautiful. Monica and Milo took a short rest while Scott tried to find a better view…he of course didn’t find one. We grabbed a bit of lunch and turned around to go back the way we came.

There were still a few hikes left on Scott’s todo list. He made a few pleas but was quickly outvoted by Monica and Milo. They had suffered through enough of Dad’s “encouragement” for one day. We headed into Portland to see Scott’s aunt and uncle and their family who were nice enough to let us camp for a couple of nights in their backyard. We just hung out that night and were able to relax. That was a welcome change…