October Trip 3.3: Columbia River Gorge--Bonneville Dam & Hatchery-->Hood River (Oct 18

Today was a day of wet rainforest, waterfalls and driving on really scenic roads.

I am however too tired to write now, so please come back tomorrow night for more. In the meantime, I have finished the Portland (Oct 17) entry below, and added the missing Grand Canyon Day 3 post, also below.

zzz....

But to reward you for checking on this post, here's a picture of how they direct visitors at the Bonneville Hatchery near the Bonneville Dam. They drew these signs on the ground.

[continued]

We bid farewell to our host Samantha at the Terwilliger Vista B&B and departed for the Columbia River Gorge. We planned to drive on the Historic Columbia River Highway (#30) for a stretch to see some waterfalls before joining #84 again to proceed to Hood River, where we will pass the night.

The Columbia River Gorge is really beautiful. Having seen the Grand Canyon and its gorges just a few days ago, you would think that we wouldn't be amazed by any other gorges anytime soon. The Columbia River Gorge however, is different. Very different. First, it's wet, it's green and the Columbia River can easily be seen flowing gracefully through the gorge.

View of the Columbia River Gorge from Women Forum Lookout Point. That's the Crown Point Vista House there on the cliff. We were on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, Washington State is on the other side of the river.

After Women Forum Lookout, we drove off the Highway up onto Larch Mountain Road to ascend the peak of Mt. Larch and get a view of several peaks in the distance. The drive was once again, beautiful. In fact, I think driving on this phase of our October trip has been enjoyable all throughout thanks to the wonderful scenery (and FayeWong's songs).

Larch Mountain Road. On certain stretches the trees reached up so high, one could hardly see their tops from within the car. Felt like driving through narrow streets in metropolitan NYC, except that we had trees instead of skyscrapers.

 To our surprise, we had to pay $5 to access the park at the peak of Mt. Larch. Even more surprising was that it was all self-service. You put the payment (cash or cheque) into an envelope (provided) and slip it into the slot in a box. You place the stub on your dashboard and you are done.

 It was only a 0.25 mile hike to the top, but certain stretches were steep and required the seniors to trod slowly. The lively and colourful views made it easier though.

 Mt. Hood in the distance.

Mt. Hood a bit closer.

Do you see something in this rock + wood formation? I saw something!

After Mt. Larch, we proceeded on the Historic Columbia River Highway. Over the next several hours, we visited several waterfalls, namely Latourell Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Multnomah Falls.

 Latourell Falls. The lichen growing on the wall was amazing. Neon yellowish green.  Apparently it's Chrysothrix candelaris.

 Yeah, no kidding. The whole area is moist, moist, moist.  Look at the amount of ferns, algae, lichen growing happily everywhere.

 Bridal Veil Falls.

 Mom at Bridal Veil Falls.

 The very magnificent Multnomah Falls. It's the second tallest year-round waterfall in the USA. 189 meter, including upper and lower falls. We only walked to the bridge, which sits between the lower and upper falls. You can continue to hike all the way to the 'top of the falls'.

Notice the chain cage they put up to prevent rock falls onto the trail.

View from the bridge on Multnomah Falls.

After the falls, it was already close to 2.30pm or 3pm. We still had Bonneville Dam and Cascade Locks to check out before we get to Hood River~ quick!

At Bonneville Dam, we visited the Bonneville Hatchery first to learn about the process of harvesting salmon from Columbia River, collect eggs and sperm for artificial fertilization in trays, rear them in controlled environment till they are fingerlings (an inch long) then release into rearing ponds. Some time after that, the young of the year are released into the river. Somehow I didn't learn the purpose of all this trouble...I assume it must be to maintain the salmon stock in the wild. Bonneville Hatchery has been running since 1909!

 The trays in which the fertilized eggs develop. Click on the picture and read the top sign to see how many eggs there are...

 The rearing ponds with the Egg Hatchery in the background.

 They have several sturgeons there too, though they don't hatch the sturgeons. They have one huge white sturgeon, Herman, who is their superstar :).

 There were also some rainbow trouts there purely for entertaining the visitors. Bonneville Hatchery doesn't process trouts.

Ignorant me didn't know that Chinook, Sockeye etc. were all salmons. I thought 'Salmon' is a fish in itself...

We then hurried over to Bonneville Dam. The thing I really wanted to see there were the Fish Ladders that allow fishes to swim upstream (against the dam) back to their spawning sites. We found that at the Visitor Center.

This was how the fish ladders look like from the above. The design is actually pretty ingenious, where the ladders have a series of pools and weirs of different heights to allow fishes to gradually swim upstream. There are also slots inside the pools that give fishes the opportunity to swim through rather than jump over the weirs.
If you go to the lower floors of the Visitor Center (like we did), you would find a large windows that allow you to look into the ponds and the fishes as they swim up the fish ladders. 'Swim' isn't the correct term, 'Struggle' and 'Fight' are more suitable. We saw sturgeons and salmons struggled against the current as if their lives depended on it. They would wriggle their bodies vigorously, gain a yard upstream then get swept back two yards. I have videos but I think they are too large to post here.

The Visitor Center closes at 5pm, and at 4.50pm we heard an announcement saying that we had 10 minutes left to exit the Visitor Center and the whole Bonneville Dam area before they lock the gates and we would have to spend the night there...

At 5pm, we left for Cascade Locks nearby. Once in Cascade Locks, we decided that "Neh,,,,let's go straight to our motel and zzz". So we skipped the Marine Park at Cascade Locks and headed straight on #84 to Hood River, where we spent the night at Sunset Motel.

Sunset Motel looked very....cheap and plain on the outside, but was actually pretty good on the inside. The owners should really put a bit of work on the exterior deco.


Tangent: On the platform looking out at Bridal Veil Falls, I saw these carvings on the wood railings. These declarations of love are very common, and they showcase two things: 1) vandalism is prevalent, 2) only naive, immature people believe in love enough to put it on wood and stone. The rest of the world doesn't even bother to lie no more.