Above Wishram

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Here are a few more gorge photos from the mini-roadtrip, this time from a little viewpoint off Hwy 14, just east of Wishram, Washington [map].

Directly across the river from the town are present-day Celilo Park and Celilo Village, and the gap in the distance is where the Deschutes River flows into the Columbia. This viewpoint once would have given you a great view of Celilo Falls, the sixth-largest waterfall on earth by volume, but it's been submerged behind the Dalles Dam since 1957. This was obviously an obstacle to migrating salmon, and the falls were a major native fishing site for at least 15,000 years, right up untl the dam went in. I've always thought that building the dam was a criminal act; the one consolation is that (per recent sonar evidence) the falls are still intact down there underwater, and in the long term nature always bats last.

Present-day Wishram is basically a railroad company town way out in the middle of nowhere in the eastern Columbia Gorge. There's a bridge over the river nearby, but it's rail-only, and no passenger trains use it, so you basically never see or hear anything about it. I'm not sure what there is to do in Wishram, but you can get there on Amtrak if you really need to.

Here's a better view of the town, down at river/railroad level so it's not even on the main road. It's got to feel a little isolated down there sometimes. I wonder what it's like down there in the winter, when the road up the bluff to Hwy 14 ices up?

It's not really the most touristed part of the gorge, but I've always found the area fascinating. A desert canyon, all bare rock and dry grass, with a truly huge river flowing down the middle. There are a lot of places around the world I haven't been, but I have to think this is a little on the uncommon side.