Tanner Creek Viaduct

Most of my posts here come about because I see an obscure thing on an obscure list of obscure things, and I suspect it might be photogenic or otherwise blogworthy. It goes on a todo list, and eventually I go track it down and take a few photos. Other times I see something on a list and realize I already have a photo or two of it lying around, which is what happened this time. So here's an April 2006 photo of the Union Pacific Tanner Creek Viaduct, which carries the railroad around Bonneville Dam and over Tanner Creek, the the same stream that flows over Wahclella Falls a short hike upstream from here.

The Tanner Creek viaduct was built in 1935 due to construction of the dam; the Union Pacific tracks were rerouted, on a stretch from a mile west of Bonneville east to Cascade Locks, at a cost of $976,300, roughly $16.7 million in 2014 dollars. That article was from March 1935, and it noted contractors were scrambling to get the job done as quickly as possible.

The viaduct was projected to be done by July 1935, and completion was announced on June 23rd, complete with a construction photo. The final bridge was 865 feet long, and cost $225,000. (For what it's worth, the general contractor on the project was a firm called "Orino, Bell & Malcolm", with the viaduct subcontracted to "Birkemeier & Saremal". I'm not familiar with either of those companies -- although the latter apparently worked on the early 1940s Front Avenue/Harbor Drive project we mostly tore out in the 70s -- but I rather like the design of this viaduct so I'm kind of filing them away for future reference. Mostly in case they've done any other bridges that are worth tracking down at some point.)

Wahclella Falls

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A few photos of Wahclella Falls, one of my favorite waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge. At some point last year I realized I hadn't been there in quite a few years, and had precisely zero photos of the falls, so I made the trip, did the easy hike in to the falls, and took way too many photos. And as is usual when I take too many photos, when I start trying to sort through and pick a few to post, I get a headache and quit iPhoto and don't look at them again for six months or a year. Which is more or less what happened here.

The one upside to this is that I always have a backlog of reasonably bloggable photos sitting around for times like this when I feel like doing a new post, but the trees are bare and grey and the weather's uncooperative. So there's that. I mean, some people might take this opportunity to go without photos and write about life, art, or politics instead. But I've already tried the political blogging thing once and I found it stressful and unrewarding. Meanwhile life is pleasantly boring, generally speaking, and would make for blog posts even more uninteresting than the stuff I do post about. And I always seem to need photos when I talk about art here (and those photos tend to sit around in iPhoto for months first, just like everything else).

So anyway, Wahclella Falls at the same exit off I-84 as Bonneville Dam, but on the opposite side of the freeway. A short drive gets you to a Forest Service parking lot, which has a fee of a few dollars. It's annoying, and I should point out that they do actually check now and then whether you're parked legally. Besides, if the Forest Service has a revenue shortfall, the difference just gets tacked on to the federal debt; you'll end up paying eventually one way or the other, so you might as well just pay now.

The initial segment of the hike is on a flat service road, until you get to a weir or flood control widget of some sort. After that it's a regular old trail. You'll pass little Munra Falls early on. Then you continue hiking in until you get to the main event, where the trail ends. There are a couple of forks in the trail, but they all end up in the same place and form a loop. It's really that simple. There aren't intersections with other trails to worry about, or any steep technical sections, and it's only 2 miles in and back, and the scenery stays interesting. I did it as a kid a few times & never thought it was a big deal. What's more, the place gets overlooked a lot, and I don't recall it ever being remotely crowded when I was there. And I can say with a fair bit of confidence that nothing has ever become fashionable or popular after I wrote about it here in the 6+ years this humble blog has graced the interwebs. So it's likely to still be uncrowded if you take my advice and go.

Munra Falls expedition

A few more Columbia Gorge waterfall photos, this time of Munra Falls, a small waterfall on the trail to Wahclella Falls, which is off the same freeway exit as Bonneville Dam. It's far from the largest or most spectacular waterfall in the gorge, but when I say it's on the trail, I mean that almost literally; it rushes down a rockface right next to the trail, and you could probably reach out and touch it if you wanted to. It's like a waterfall petting zoo, really.

The one surprising thing is that it's acquired a semi-official name, one which is at least used commonly around the interwebs:

• Portland Hikers' Field Guide has some basic info about the falls & states they're about 35 feet tall. Which isn't much by Gorge standards, but I still wouldn't go over it in a barrel.
• A forum thread at the same site mentions that the stream is called Munra Creek, and this is far from the only waterfall on said creek.
• More info at Waterfall Record and Waterfalls Northwest. The latter has another photo and directions to the falls, if you need directions for some reason.
• Someone's Panoramio photo, which looks a lot like the top photo here. There aren't a lot of fresh, innovative camera angles to be had at this particular waterfall, I'm afraid.
• I sort of assumed the word "Munra" was an anglicized Indian word, but it's actually a surname. Katherine Sterrett Munra ran the railroad's "eating house" nearby, somewhere in the Bonneville area, from the 1880s to the 1920s. As far as I know, the original building no longer exists.
• Yet another forum thread at Oregon Hikers Field Guide discusses place names on old maps of the Gorge, including various things named "Munra". Nearby Munra Point was once called "Mount Munra" at one time. Everything was just a bit more melodramatic back then.

wildflowers, wahclella falls

Some wildflowers along the trail to Wahclella Falls, which is out in the Gorge near Bonneville Dam. I do have photos of the falls as well, and you'll see them as soon as I get around to sorting through them all, whenever that is. I didn't get as many useful flower photos, so this post was much easier to put together than the falls one is going to be. And why did I need a new post all of a sudden? It turns out I've been Reddited, as part of a thread about "Favorite Portland Blogs" (in which this humble blog inexplicably got a mention). As is inevitably the case, when this occurred the top post here was about a cheesy old monster movie, not Portland-related at all. So I figured I ought to put together something a little more local and topical in case anyone actually shows up here.

If I was wrong and you'd really prefer to read about a crappy monster movie or two, just scroll down a bit, or click here.

Anyway: Thx for visiting. Mgmt.