Back in 2020 we paid a visit to Columbia County's Beaver Falls, located between Rainier and Clatskanie along a surviving stretch of the old Lower Columbia River Highway. Few people realize anymore that the famous Columbia River Highway was more than just a few photogenic miles of windy road through the Columbia Gorge, and it once crossed the whole state, west to east, under a variety of names. The LCRH was the portion that continued downstream from Portland all the way to Astoria and Seaside. That route was never as spectacular as the HCRH through the Gorge, but it had a number of scenic highlights along the way... almost all of which were then bypassed in the 1950s and 1960s in the name of progress, where "progress" just meant getting to Astoria as quickly as possible, And to some the current road was just a temporary intermediate state in a wider modernization effort; in 1964, Gov. Hatfield proposed extending Interstate 80N (today's Interstate 84) all the way to Astoria, explaining that it was justified by "the industrial development on the Lower Columbia River".
In any event, that post ended up being rather long because I was encountering much of this history for the first time. Somewhere among all my nested tangents I mentioned there was one more waterfall along Beaver Creek, or at least one more, but I had missed the place to pull off the road for it, and didn't feel like going back for another go at stopping there. Then earlier this summer I had the idea to head out to Astoria since I hadn't been there in years, and at least go see the Peter Iredale shipwreck and Youngs River Falls and then take it from there. So I figured I might as well check off this TODO list item while I was heading through the area.
So with that lengthy introduction, here we are at Upper Beaver Falls, which looks like your average 15' roadside waterfall in the Northwest. Unlike a lot of these it isn't marred by an ugly concrete fish ladder from the 1950s, since the 50' waterfall downstream is an insurmountable barrier to salmon, and neither waterfall is much of an obstacle to the legendary anadromous beaked whales I mentioned in a 2020 post about Ecola Falls (which is upstream of Multnomah Falls). Unlike its downstream sibling, the little falls here aren't protected by a semi-forgotten county park, so in theory some private landowner might try to mark it off limits at some point, though at least part of it probably falls within the old highway right of way, plus the state may very well own the creek itself, so long as it's "navigable" -- which may involve someone taking one for the team and going over the lower falls in a kayak. I couldn't find any evidence that anyone has done this, but it might be possible; the pool below Beaver Falls is supposedly quite deep, and there are a lot of YouTube videos showing people going over much taller waterfalls than this in kayaks and surviving and going on and on about how stoked they were about it. (Disclaimer: As always, Legal says I have to tell you not to do this, and common sense dictates that when I -- a non-kayaker and non-xtreme-sports person -- say something looks doable, basing that entirely on stuff I've seen other people do in other locations on YouTube, that is not a legally binding promise that it is, in fact, doable, and you and/or your next of kin can't sue me for putting some cockamamie idea in your head. Are we clear on this? Thx.)
Finally, I should note that there's room for more than one car at the falls, and there was a weird bit of drama going on among the other people there when I stopped by, as I tried to explain over on the 'Gram:
No comments :
Post a Comment