Coyote Wall & the Labyrinth

Nearly everything is closed right now due to the global pandemic, and I'm holed up at home trying to make myself do things besides working and reading the endless bad news. So I'm going to try to put a dent in my endless pile of draft blog posts and unused photosets with some of this unstructured free time; it's obviously not a replacement for going outside, but it's the best available option at the moment.

So here's a photoset from last May, taken at Coyote Wall in the Columbia Gorge, on the Washington side a few miles east of White Salmon and Hood River. Coyote Wall is easily visible from Hood River & Interstate 84; it's the huge rock formation that looks kind of like a flat-topped desert mesa with sheer cliffs, but tilted maybe 20 degrees so that one end meets the river. I only recently realized the place had a name, which was around the same time I learned it has an extensive trail system that I knew nothing about. Turns out that officially there have only been trails here since 2011, when the Forest Service adopted a master plan for the area. Of course there were trails here before that, largely of the outlaw mountain bike variety, but apparently I wasn't part of the right rumor mills or whisper networks or insider cabals or whatever to have known anything about the place. Story of my life, really.

Anyway, if you go at the right time of year -- which I apparently did -- at some point while hiking endlessly uphill you'll hit the altitude where it's currently peak wildflower season. Which is truly amazing. I like to think some of the photos in the photoset approach doing it justice. To give you some idea, my original plan for the day was to do the Coyote Wall - Labyrinth Loop trail, but in reverse order to ensure I at least saw the Coyote Wall part if I decided to bail out early. Then after that I was going to cross the river and go to Rowena Plateau, a place I've repeatedly said is my favorite place in the Gorge and maybe my favorite anywhere, a strongly-held opinion dating back to 1990 or so, mumble-mumble decades ago. And I decided to punt on that whole leg of the trip and wander around here longer instead. Mostly I just wanted to stay longer here, but I had a gut feeling that doing both in the same day would lead to ranking them, and the old sentimental favorite might not win that one, and overall I'd be happier leaving them as separate and unique experiences. I am slightly embarrassed to report this, but while I was wandering around with all the sunshine and flowers there miiiight have been a brief "Sound of Music"-style twirl or two. I say "slightly" because there was no actual singing involved, just the twirl part. And furthermore, I am only telling you any of this because there's a global pandemic now, and everything's closed indefinitely, and I really miss going outside in any capacity. So yeah.

Eventually the trail brings you to a point where the steep slope levels off and the open grassy slope gives way to a mixed forest, and a few trails lead off in different directions. A lot of people turn around at this point, having gotten what they came for, and I probably would have been just fine doing that myself in retrospect, but the loop I was doing kept going, so I kept going, and the next bit was something called the "Crybaby Trail". My memory can be a little sketchy about these things, but my recollection is that this trail is slightly wider than a mountain bike tire, and it's laid out along the very edge of a cliff many hundreds of feet high, and on sunny days it attracts all of the world's snakes to come and sun themselves. Or to hide in bushes right next to the trail, for some of the more easily startled snakes. I may be exaggerating about the width of the trail, possibly. I may have mentioned once or twice that I have an occasional heights issue, or more exactly a not-having-anything-to-grab-onto-around-heights issue. Which I don't like, and I try to poke at it under controlled conditions when I can, in the hope I can get over it or at least mitigate it at some point. This hasn't worked so far, and I have to say the Crybaby Trail was my least favorite part of the adventure, but maybe next time will do the trick, whenever that turns out to be.

The Labyrinth part of the loop takes you through varied terrain to the east of Coyote Wall. Some additional open grassy areas, and sections of forest, and lots of rugged lava rocks, and at least one waterfall. I would probably have more to say about this part if a.) I hadn't just been where I'd just been (both the Julie Andrews part and the cliffside Well of Souls part), and b.) I had written this post in a reasonably timely fashion, when it was easier to remember more than a few key highlights. One key highlight I do remember from this stretch of trail was briefly glimpsing a pika, as it fled thinking I was some sort of horrible predator. I hear them all the time while hiking but I'm not sure I'd ever actually seen one before this one. So that was cool. The cute little squeak sound they make sounds exactly like a family dog's favorite rubber squeak toy when I was a kid. So when I hear pika calls I think I'll always have this mental image of a small dachshund eagerly playing fetch with a large squeaky rubber cheeseburger. Which was exactly as silly as it sounds.

In any case, it's time to wrap this thing up before the clock hits midnight, so I can keep the "at least one post per month since 2005" streak going for another 30 days. I had this idea at the beginning of April that I might have time to do more than one this month given all the working from home and avoiding all human contact and so forth. But it hasn't really worked out that way so far. I'm not sure whether that's because April 1st was just a few hours ago and there simply wasn't time, or because it was two billion years ago and I spent most of the month trying to evolve cell walls, followed by a rudimentary central nervous system. Both of these things seem equally true somehow. But I have high hopes for May. Got a shiny new vaguely-defined time period to work with, that's bound to make me incredibly productive and creative this time around. Please note how I am setting this joke up for future me as I try to finish another post with minutes to spare the evening of May 31st.

Mount Defiance

Ok, next up we're off to the Columbia Gorge again for a hike up Mt. Defiance, a few miles west of Hood River. This is the highest point in the Gorge at 4960 feet, or at least that's the most common number I've seen, though Wikipedia now says 5010 feet, based on 1988 survey data. Either way, the views near the top are incredible. This is as good a time as any to go page through the Flickr photoset above to see what I mean.

The problem is that the trailhead's basically at river level, about 130 feet above sea level, and reaches the top in under six miles, which should give some idea why the trail's widely regarded as the toughest day hike in the area. I had done this trail once before, about 25 years ago, because I was 23 and it seemed like a good idea, and I wanted to be able to say I'd done it, on the off chance I met someone who'd know or care what I was going on about. I was sore for about a week afterward. It occurred to me recently that it had been a quarter century since I'd done this, and I wanted to know whether I could still do it -- because this is the sort of thought that occurs to you a lot in your late 40s -- and I was annoyed at 23-year-old me for not bringing a camera last time (which would have been a clunky old film camera, because 25 years ago). And truth be told, I did it because I'd originally planned to do the Larch Mountain Trail but left too late, and the Multnomah Falls parking lot was full & closed off when I got there, and for some reason this seemed like a reasonable Plan B. Once again I was sore for about a week, but I pulled it off, and now I'm set for another 25 years or so, I guess.

Anyway, the trail starts at the Starvation Creek rest area off I-84. A short path takes you to Starvation Creek Falls, just steps from the parking lot. It's not really part of the trail to the top, but it seems kind of silly to skip it since it's right there. This is the first of four waterfalls you'll see during the hike, and they're all during the initial part so if you're just interested in waterfalls you can bail out early before things really get ugly. The first part of the trail follows part of the old Columbia River Highway, so it's pancake-flat and recently repaved. Along the way you'll pass Cabin Creek Falls. Eventually you'll hang a left at the "Mt. Defiance Trail #413" sign, and at first it's also flat and paved. There's even a little picnic area with benches, recent signage, and some stonework, and just beyond that is Hole-in-the-Wall Falls, which was constructed back in 1938 (long story). After that, the uphill part begins. Switchback up to the BPA powerline corridor and turn right where the Mt Defiance trail splits from the equally tough Starvation Ridge Trail (which is still on my todo list; I tried it once, a bit before I did Mt. Defiance last time, but bailed out part of the way up). Along this stretch you'll come across Lancaster Falls. It looks kind of puny from this standpoint, but apparently this is just the very bottom of a 250 foot waterfall. That's what the internet says, anyway. It seems that if you want to see the whole thing, your best bet is to pull off at the ODOT weigh station on westbound I-84 and take your photos from there. Note: I have never done this and am just taking the word of internet strangers at face value here. In any case, you will appreciate this waterfall a lot more on the way down, especially on a hot day.

After leaving the powerline corridor, it's time for steep and seemingly endless switchbacks through dense forest, typically with steep dropoffs next to the trail, and a couple of viewpoints so you can confirm that you really are making progress uphill. You're doing all of these switchbacks to get up the side of a ridge, and once you're on top of it the trail flattens out (relatively speaking) for a while, which is the little break that makes the trail tolerable, as far as I'm concerned. Then it kicks back up to Excessively Steep for Excessively Long, but this time you're going straight up along the ridge top, and there aren't any dropoffs next to the trail, so it's physically tough but mentally you can kind of do this part on autopilot. Views are few and far between, but part of the trail passes through the Eagle Creek burn zone, and there will likely be amazing views at some point once some of the dead trees fall over. The burn zone was actually a lot less depressing than it was on other recent hikes, since the forest floor was covered with flowers and other new growth. I'm sure it helped that I visited in late spring instead of midwinter. And maybe I'm slowly getting used to the Gorge's new normal, I'm not sure.

In any case, eventually the vegetation sort of peters out into a rocky area with mostly smaller, gnarled trees. This is the point where you can see forever* (*on a good day, and figuratively, not literally or mathematically) and you can start telling yourself that the last few miles were totally worth it. Looking north you can see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Rainier in the distance. If you squint a bit, just to the right of Mt. St Helens you can just make out even more snowcapped mountains in the distance, which far as I can tell would have to be the Olympics. This really surprised me; Google says the Olympics are 176 miles away, which seems kind of far, but it's not like there are a lot of other snowy mountains in that particular direction, so who knows?

As you approach the top there's a fork in the trail. As of spring 2019, a temporary US Forest Service sign explains that going straight ahead is the easier trail, and going off to the right is the more scenic route. I hope they continue this on the sign's permanent replacement; it reminds me of the late, lamented "Difficult/More Difficult" sign at a Hamilton Mountain trail junction. I am honestly not sure why there are two trails here; it's a bit late in the process to start picking easier trails, if you ask me. The scenic route curves around the mountain, and for the first time in the whole hike you get amazing views of Mt. Hood to the south, while to the east you can see the entire Hood River Valley and behind it the beige desert country of Eastern Oregon stretches off to the horizon.

At the very top of the mountain, you're in for a little surprise: Radio towers, humming and buzzing, fenced off, with signs warning trespassers to keep out or else, and more signs warning of RF radiation hazards. And then you realize all of this is here because there's a service road to the top, and the crazy thing you just hiked up is somebody's occasional commute. One sign even lists "Top of Mt. Defiance, Cascade Locks OR" as the summit's street address. Still, this makes for some interesting photos, so you do that for a bit but soon realize that horrible little black flies are attacking you, and it's intolerable, and it quickly dawns on you that the journey was the reward, and the real summit was the friends we made along the way, and/or it was in our hearts the whole time, and it's time to head home.

So you can head back the way you came, or take a side trail over to the Starvation Ridge trail I mentioned earlier, or -- as it turns out -- you could take another side trail heading south that goes to a different trailhead, just 1.6 miles away and 1145 feet below the summit. But, I mean, doing it that way is obviously cheating, somehow, and it can't possibly be any fun anyway, plus my city-slicker midsize sedan hates rustic gravel roads, and I'm not about to buy a giant SUV no matter how outdoorsy the commercials are. Sunk cost fallacy? I have no idea what you're talking about.

Anyway, the way down is a lot faster than the way up, but not necessarily easier, since you don't want to go too fast, especially on the sketchy bits with the dropoffs. I am still kind of amazed I didn't blow out a knee or two on this part of the hike, and your mileage may vary, and hiking poles may be really helpful here no matter how goofy they look. You might meet a few people slogging their way up the hill on your way down. I just smiled and kept moving; I was actually kind of worried someone would ask how much further it was to the top, or whether the hard part was over, since there's just no way to be both truthful and encouraging on those questions. Luckily I was just greeted with thousand-yard stares, one after another. Come to think of it, I may have been doing that myself on the way up, since my recollection of the really steep parts is... somewhat less than vivid.

Anyway, I made it down the hill and back home, this time with photos, and have now started wondering whether I need a tent, sleeping bag, and so forth. I mean, I already know I don't have that kind of free time, and I haven't forgotten what the weather's like here 9 months out of the year, but it still has a certain appeal. So who knows.

Emerald Falls

Some months back I did a post about the Columbia Gorge's Gorton Creek Falls, a (relatively) un-touristy spot a few miles east of Cascade Locks. The photoset included one photo of Emerald Falls, a small (10' or so) waterfall along the way to the main event. I neglected to even mention Emerald Falls in the body of the post, but one of the many project rules here at this humble blog is that each waterfall gets its own post. (See for example, Munra Falls on the way to Wahclella Falls, and Shady Creek Falls along the main Multnomah Falls trail.) So here we are. I don't really have any fascinating tidbits to share here; I checked the library's Oregonian database & verified the phrase "emerald falls" has never appeared in the Oregonian, dating back to the paper's founding in 1861. Which is not really surprising, given that it's only ten feet tall and 43 miles away. I did find a couple of good blog posts about hiking to the main falls that mentioned Emerald Falls too, so I thought I'd pass those along.

One thing that kind of surprised me was how much art photography there is of this little waterfall. I imagine the deal is that, beyond just being photogenic, there are practical reasons it's popular. It's a short, flat walk along an uncrowded trail, and Emerald Falls is where the proper trail ends; after this point you're making your way along the streambed, scrambling over rocks and fallen trees most of the way. So if you're lugging a heavy pro tripod and expensive L glass (or whatever the Nikon equivalent is), this would be a good place to stop and shoot. Here are a few semi-randomly selected examples, all of which are better than my one brief attempt above: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]. From these and other examples, we can derive some tips for getting a really good Emerald Falls photo, almost none of which I observed in mine.

1. Bring a tripod (or monopod, or Gorillapod, or whatever) so you can get the proper long exposure look. 1/8 second was as long as I could do handheld without blurry results, and the effect is not quite up to par here. It's not that I haven't known this detail for years; it's just that I dislike lugging a bunch of gear around, and am not enough of a perfectionist to do it anyway.
2. It didn't occur to me to climb down to creek level, but that appears to be the best spot to shoot from.
3. Wide angle lenses seem to be a popular choice. I do actually own one of those but neglected to bring it along, because gear lugging.
4. Go when there's plenty of water in the creek, i.e. not in late July when I was there.
5. There's fall color here if you go at the right time, I'm guessing probably mid-October. If at all possible, be at creek level, use that wide angle lens, and have a fallen leaf or two on rocks in the foreground. Or at least that's what people did in the photos I liked the most.

Unfortunately the Wyeth - Gorton Creek area was affected by the 2017 Eagle Creek forest fire, and the whole area has been closed to the public since then, so at the moment you can't do any of the stuff I just mentioned. As of mid-May 2018, the Wyeth campground is open, but the adjacent trails -- the only reason I know of for using the campground -- are still closed. A KATU story from a couple of weeks ago indicated that the east end of the burned area (which was less severely affected than the central area around Eagle Creek) might be reopened in the near future, but as far as I know we haven't arrived at the near future quite yet. A January OPB story indicated that some parts of the burned area may be closed for years. So we'll see. And it's not as if the burned areas are going to look the same now. In retrospect, if I'd known there was going to be a fire, I'd have put a little more effort into some of the old photos I took back then. Well, that and tried to warn the public about reckless teens with fireworks, only to be ignored, ridiculed, and possibly arrested, like all the other time travelers.

Gorton Creek Bridge

While I was visiting Gorton Creek Falls (which we saw in the previous post) I took a quick peek at the small, circa-1919 Gorton Creek Bridge nearby. One of my numerous ongoing projects here involves tracking down old bridges from the original Columbia River Highway, and this is yet another of them, albeit maybe not one of the crown jewels. Still, the project wouldn't be complete without finding it, so here we are.

As I mentioned in a post about the Shepperds Dell Bridge a while back, the state highway commission had around 4 bridge designers working on different parts of the highway. This one was designed by Lewis W. Metzger, who's also credited with the nice little arch bridge at Eagle Creek, and a larger one at Moffett Creek that I haven't gotten around to posting about yet, plus a few others I haven't visited, and a couple that no longer exist, like one in Hood River that was demolished & replaced in 1982.

The highway commission biennial report for 1916-1917 mentioned that this bridge was budgeted at $2500, which is about $53,600 in today's dollars. Which seems pretty cheap for a concrete bridge that's held up for nearly a century. (The most expensive item on the list was $250,000 for the now-replaced Center Street Bridge in Salem. Metzger worked on that bridge too, so I imagine the Gorton Creek project was a bit of an afterthought.)

A downside of building a no-frills bridge is that it was made just wide enough for early 20th century cars, and it lacks sidewalks. In practice this isn't a huge problem, as this stretch of ex-highway is lightly traveled and the bridge is short so you can just wait & walk across when nobody's coming. On the other hand, ODOT is in the middle of their big-budget Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail project, which aims to create a shiny new bike-friendly, tourist-friendly route from Portland out to the Dalles or so. This bridge is on the route, but ODOT felt it wasn't up to the job, bike-wise, so in 2015 they started looking at adding a new bike/pedestrian bridge next to the current bridge. Construction was targeted at fall 2016, but eventually began in August 2017, and it's not clear now whether they're adding a bike-only bridge in parallel, or replacing the whole thing. If it's the latter, it wouldn't be a major loss in terms of sheer beauty or historic preservation, let's be honest here. In any case, the latest project newsletter indicates construction is ongoing, so evidently this area wasn't heavily impacted by the Eagle Creek Fire.

Gorton Creek Falls

I was taking another wary glance at my vast Drafts folder and realized I had a number of unfinished posts about places around the Columbia River Gorge. I feel like I ought to finish them up now, as a small record of what the Gorge was like before the Eagle Creek Fire.

So first up are some photos of Gorton Creek Falls, in the Wyeth area east of Cascade Locks. I took these in July 2015; it was the first time I'd ever been to this particular waterfall, so I went by the OregonHikers.org description of the hike, and instructions on how to find the trailhead. (Note there's also a remote & difficult Gorton Creek Trail that goes nowhere near the falls, so it's best not to confuse the two hikes.) The one thing to watch out for is an intersection with the east-west Gorge Trail not far into the hike. There are signs for various trails heading off to the left and right at this point, but the trail going straight ahead is unmarked for some reason. The unmarked trail is the one to the waterfall. It starts out as a nice well-maintained trail, but before long you'll be clambering over rocks and tree roots as you make your way upstream to the falls. It's sort of the same category as Oneonta Gorge that way, except that you don't absolutely have to wade through the creek. I made it without getting my feet wet, but this was in late July during a dry summer, and your mileage may vary. It was kind of fun, and the falls were worth the effort. I didn't say as long as I'd have liked to, though, because a sign at the parking lot said a Northwest Forest Pass was required, and I couldn't figure out where to pay my $5, so I kind of rolled the dice and hoped I could get out & back before they ticketed or towed me. Luckily that turned out ok, but again, your mileage may vary.

There's no such thing as an undiscovered hike in the Gorge anymore, but Gorton Creek was surprisingly uncrowded when I was there, probably just because it's just that much further from Portland than the more famous Gorge attractions. If this was located where Oneonta Gorge or even Eagle Creek is, it would probably be packed all summer.

Hood River Bridge

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Here's my one and only photo from the Hood River Bridge, which spans the Columbia River between Hood River OR and White Salmon/Bingen WA.

It's a toll bridge for vehicles, and bikes and pedestrians aren't allowed at all. It's not because the Port of Hood River hates bikes or pedestrians; the bridge is quite narrow, with an open grate bridge deck and no sidewalks at all. They recently studied what it would take to add a pedestrian walkway to the bridge, either cantilevered off to one side, or possibly below the main deck. The study concluded the bridge likely can't support any additional weight without reinforcing the bridge supports, and its design makes it difficult to widen. They came up with a rough estimated price tag of around $10 million, money the port doesn't currently have. The study mentions the deficiencies of the bridge beyond the pedestrian problem, namely that it's too narrow for modern vehicles, such that vehicles are always banging into it, and it's well past its original design lifetime of 75 years. Replacing the current bridge was estimated at around $250 million, with the caveat that money for a new bridge isn't likely to be available anytime soon, given the two states' many other transportation priorities.

Back when I was doing Willamette River bridges, a key part of the project was to walk across each one and take some photos, where possible (i.e. not railroad bridges). I even got the Marquam & Fremont bridges by signing up for the Portland Bridge Pedal a few years ago. And when I started thinking about Columbia River bridges, the Interstate and Glenn Jackson were both walkable. It occurs to me now that those two might be the only walkable Columbia bridges until the Cable Bridge, way off in the Tri-Cities. The Astoria-Megler Bridge bans pedestrians except for a once-a-year fun run. I've considered doing the bridge pedal thing and signing up just so I can take some photos. But Astoria's a long drive and I haven't gotten around to it. The Hansen Bridge + Westport Ferry combo is supposed to be doable by bike. There's also a long walk across Puget Island between the two water segments if you're going that way by foot. The Bridge of the Gods is actually part of the Pacific Crest Trail, and as I recall they charge 50 cents to cross the bridge on foot. You'd be walking on the main roadway, though (because again, no sidewalks), with the usual open grate deck so you can see the river churning along beneath your feet. As I recall the bridges at The Dalles and Biggs/Maryhill are in the same boat as the Hood River bridge: Old, narrow, no sidewalks, no pedestrians or bikes. East of there I'm not so sure. I seem to recall the I-82 bridge is without sidewalks, anyway, and the Cable Bridge definitely has them. The ones in between I'm not so sure about. It's possible a road trip is required here...