Three Days in the Columbia River Gorge

This post is about a trip close to our home in Portland, Oregon. My wife and I just spent three fantastic days in the Columbia River Gorge, a spectacularly beautiful place full of rugged basalt cliffs, dramatic waterfalls, lush green forests, and excellent craft beer. Known locally as the "Gorge,” the area is about 80 miles long and follows the Columbia River from the Deschutes River to around Troutdale, Oregon (just east of Portland). Its most famous for the waterfalls, which are awesome and must be seen.  My two favorites are Multnomah Falls, the tallest in Oregon, and Latourell Falls, in my opinion, the most dramatic.  

On this trip, however, we skipped the waterfalls and the crowds and focused instead on the small towns, the craft breweries, wine-tasting, and a phenomenal half-day hike. 

Getting around:

Although you'll see plenty of trains in the Gorge, they're pretty much all freight trains.  There really is no practical way to get around other than by car.  Two primary highways run up and down the Gorge on the north and south sides of the Columbia River.  Interstate 84, on the south (Oregon) side, is faster but a little less scenic.  Highway 14, on the north (Washington) side, is slower but offers a lot of viewpoint pull-outs and a more enjoyable driving experience overall.  Highway 14 also runs right next to the train tracks in many places, with big trains rattling by at high speed and a number of fun tunnels through basalt outcroppings.  Except in poor weather, Highway 14 is by far the better way to drive the Gorge.  

In addition to I-84 and Highway 14, the Historic Columbia River Gorge Scenic Highway runs for 70 miles from Troutdale, Oregon all the way to a city called The Dalles, Oregon.  This scenic byway was first opened in 1916 and provides a world-class driving experience, passing all the major attraction waterfalls, the Vista House viewpoint, and other classic Gorge scenery.  It's slow and often clogs up around the prime waterfalls parking lots.  Because of its popularity, the US Forest Service now requires timed permits in the main waterfall corridor May through September.  These permits must be reserved ahead of time online for a nominal fee. I've driven portions of this scenic highway many times and always enjoyed it.  Definitely worth it for anyone visiting the Gorge for the first time.   

There are three main bridges within the Gorge Scenic Area: Bridge of the Gods at Cascade Locks, Hood River Bridge, and Highway 197 Bridge at The Dalles, a larger town at the eastern end of the Gorge area.  Bridge of the Gods and Hood River Bridge both charge $2 tolls.  The Highway 197 Bridge has no toll.   

Day 1: Driving and exploring

Our first stop was at Stevenson, Washington, a small, typical Gorge town right along Highway 14 about an hour from the Portland Airport.  The most famous attraction, the high-end Skamania Lodge and Resort, is just west of town, so coming from Portland you drive past it before you hit Stevenson itself.  Skamania Lodge is popular, expensive, and requires advance planning to find a room.  

We weren't staying in Stevenson, so we didn't stop at the Lodge. Instead, we drove into town and walked around a bit.  We got there late morning on a drizzly Saturday. The town felt pretty empty.  Generally speaking, and with the exception of Hood River, Gorge towns seem to be less and less prosperous the farther east you go from Portland. Stevenson, being relatively close to Portland, has fewer boarded up shop windows than some other towns in the Gorge.  But the main thing is it's just very small.  According to Wikipedia its population is about 1,500.  We stepped into a very put-together local bookstore, North Bank Books on Russell Ave just off of Highway 14 to browse and escape a heavier rain shower. From there, once the rain passed, we headed a few blocks down to the Skamania Port Waterfront, a city park along the Columbia with a wooden-plank pier extending out over the river, walking paths, small rocky beaches, and playground equipment spread out randomly across the park.  There's a restaurant called Clark & Lewies right on the water in the middle of the park area.  If we'd been staying in town longer, we probably would have tried it for the setting alone.

Instead, because we'd heard good things, we walked back towards town and got an outdoor table at Walking Man Brewery.  Walking Man has a well-covered, sunken outdoor seating area with European beer garden vibes.  I enjoyed a Walking Man IPA and we split a delicious Margherita Pizza.  The covered patio and extremely mellow staff and clientele made for a pleasant outdoor dining experience.

After lunch, we headed back down to the river to Skunk Brothers Distillery.  We'd seen the signs on our walk through the park earlier and decided to check it out.  Skunk Brothers is a disabled-veteran owned family distillery business that makes mostly bourbon and corn whiskey.  We are not liquor drinkers but had fun chatting with one of the owners and sampling a few very small portions of the whiskey and extremely sweet cordials.  The tasting fee is minimal and waived if you purchase a bottle.

From Stevenson we drove east on 14 to Carson, WA, an even smaller town, to find our hotel, Carson Hot Springs Resort.  This is most certainly not Skamania Lodge.  We'd chosen this hotel more for the location, price, and availability than anything else.  The place is somewhat rundown and quirky but not in an especially charming way.  It has a small mineral pool and a communal bathhouse with a clothing-optional soaking tub room that we didn't even think about trying.  The restaurant just off the lobby area also looked like something we were better off skipping.  But our first-floor room was quiet and clean and had a working hot tub on the private patio with forest views.  The hotel's setting in a steep, forested river canyon is pretty but not spectacular.  

One bright spot is the completely unadvertised but well-maintained trail running up the canyon from behind the hotel's front desk.  I explored this early one morning while my wife enjoyed the hot tub.  It leads up through dense forest above the rushing Wind River for about half a mile until you encounter a perilous steel cable suspension bridge over the river, which rushes through a narrow, man-made fishway.  It's a lot like the bridge in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  Quite a surprise at the end of the short hike.

Late afternoon, we drove about 25 minutes east and then south across a $2 toll bridge to Hood River for dinner.  We found a crowded and delicious ramen shop called Mugen Noodle.  Hood River is a small city of about 7,000 with the Gorge's most vibrant downtown area and lots of big historic homes on tree-lined, hilly streets.  With its popularity among kite boarders and skiers, it has a well-to-do, college town feel. Lots of restaurants and bars for its size, lots of teenagers eating ice cream on the sidewalk.  I've stopped there often, always thought I should stay longer to get to know the place, but for some reason never do.

Day 2: Hiking and wine

About fifteen minutes east of our hotel in Carson is one of the most popular hikes in the Gorge, Dog Mountain.  A steep, strenuous hike through exposed meadows, it's famous for wildflowers, views, and crowds.  Reservations are now required on busy days, and I've heard the parking lot overflows.  We hiked it once years ago and had fun.  But it's a hard, crowded hike, so we skipped it this time and instead drove another 30 minutes east up the Gorge to a trail called Lyle Cherry Orchard Loop.  The parking lot is a safe pull-out off of 14.  Because the land around the trail is owned by the private Columbia Land Trust, no parking pass or fee is required. Keep in mind that also means there are no bathrooms.

Lyle Cherry Orchard Loop is an A+ hike up out of the steep, rocky Gorge canyon and along a windy ridge with plenty of wildflowers and views that are almost as good as what you'll find on the Dog Mountain trail.  And it's not crowded at all.  We hiked it late morning on the Sunday before Memorial Day and passed only about a dozen other hikers.  The vegetation and climate changes quite a bit in this part of the Gorge, becoming a lot drier and windier with almost no pine trees.  A lot of the area is open grass land speckled with black rock outcroppings.  Feels like a classic old western landscape.  I'd read about rattlesnakes seen on the trail frequently, and there are warning signs about snakes, tics, and poison oak, but we saw nothing dangerous.  Once you make the climb up to the ridge, which was extremely windy that day, you find yourself in quiet, sunny oak groves with lots of wildflowers.  I love hikes like this where you get the uphill out of the way at the start and can enjoy the scenery on a mostly flat ridge for a while before doubling back.  It's a bit of a drive to get ther from Portland, but highly recommended.

After the hike we crossed the Highway 197 bridge along the Dalles Dam and headed into The Dalles (the name of the city) for a late lunch at Petite Provence, a local Oregon chain with first-rate breakfast and bakery fare.  Like the arid, mostly treeless landscape out here at the east end of the Gorge, The Dalles is quite a bit different from towns closer to Portland.  It feels more rural west, both culturally and visually, than pacific northwest.  The local economic conditions seem a bit better these days than on my previous visits, but the downtown blocks still appear to be about half empty with a lot of "for lease" signs.  In that way, it's like a lot of rural towns all across the west.  Even so, it is generally sunnier in this part of the Gorge, and the open grasslands and dramatic slopes rising above the wide Columbia make it worth a visit.  We did not get a chance to stop at Freebridge Brewery, but I've heard lots of good things and will check it out the next time I'm in the area.  Instead, we headed back north across the river and then east on 14 for a few miles, passing the fantastic Horsethief Butte State Park, which offers hiking, fishing (at a small lake), rock climbing, and a lot more of that wide-open western scenery.   

We stopped in a Jacob Williams Winery in Wishram, WA, which is about 15 minutes northeast from The Dalles and right on the Columbia River.  The winery offers fantastic eastern Gorge views, lots of outdoor seating, and a low-key but elegant atmosphere.  With few trees out in that part of the Gorge, the winds can be fierce, so we didn't last at an outdoor table for very long.  The wines were great, but I admit am not picky and not very knowledgeable when it comes to wine.  For me, wine tasting is more about spending a relaxed hour or two with good company in a beautiful setting.  I'm not there to judge wines or to try to remember which variety was aged in what kind of barrel.  In fact, I feel like there is a lot of *pretending* going on when it comes to the wine tasting scene.  Can you really taste hints of chocolate or tell the difference between a rainy year and a dry year? 

After a really relaxing visit to Jacob Williams we drove back west on Highway 14, passing Horsethief Butte Natural Area, which we would have checked out if we weren't tired from the morning hike.  We visited Horsethief Butte years ago for some hiking and a little rock climbing.  It's an interesting landscape and worth a stop.

We had dinner that night at Backwoods Brewing in Carson, WA, close to our hotel.  Above-average brewery fare and really the only option in that small town.  

Day 3: Sightseeing and History

You can't help but learn some history while traveling in the Gorge.  For thousands of years, native peoples thrived along the Columbia River, using it for resources, trade, and travel.  Beginning in the 1700's, diseases from European settlers decimated native populations.  By the time white settlers began arriving in the area in significant numbers in the 1840's and 50's, the native populations were already dwindled.  White settlers rapidly displaced them over the next few decades.  Of course, the Lewis and Clark Expedition brought the first known white explorers to the Gorge.  They followed the Columbia all the way to the Pacific Ocean in small wooden boats, having no idea what they encounter with each bend in the river.  That must have been intense.  Thirty years later, settlers started arriving in numbers via the famous Oregon Trail, which ended at The Dalles, where they would have to make a choice to take an overland toll road through the Cascade Mountains and into the Willamette Valley or build rafts out of their wagons (nuts!) so they could continue west using the river.  

There are so many historic areas along the Gorge where you can learn these incredible stories.  The town of Cascade Locks is a great spot to take in history.  After a lazy morning before checking out of our hotel, we drove west on Highway 14 for twenty minutes and crossed over the river at the Bridge of the Gods, a $2 toll bridge that feels right out of a postcard.  The toll bridge takes you into Cascade Locks, a small, touristy Gorge town with awesome views.  

A famous spot in Cascade Locks is the Cascade Locks Marine Park, which we've been to several times.  Here you'll find a small local museum, a play ground, lots of open grassy park areas, and Thunder Island, which was carved out of the mainland to build the Cascade Locks Canal in the late nineteenth century.  With stunning views of the Gorge and the historic paddlewheel cruise ship, the Sternwheeler, Thunder Island is a popular wedding spot and a fun place to walk around and take photos.  Here, you can also check out the fishing platforms along the walls of the canal, where native people still fish for steelhead and salmon with pole nets.

In my opinion, this area is the heart of the Gorge and should not be missed.  On this stop in Cascade Locks, we didn't make it to Thunder Island Brewing, but it's definitely one of our favorite spots in the Gorge and worth visiting.   

Another great place to stop for history and sightseeing is the Bonneville Dam area, just west of Cascade Locks.  Young kids would especially like the Bradford Island Visitor Center where they can get tour the inside of the dam and check out the fish ladder.  Nearby is the Bonneville Fish Hatchery, where kids can feed trout in the ponds and get face to face with enormous sturgeon.

The Eagle Creek Trail in this part of the Gorge is one of the best hikes around, although a horrible forest fire in 2017 (the "Eagle Creek Fire") burned much of the forest in that area.  I haven't hiked in that area since the fire, but I've heard the hike is still worth it, with lots of waterfall views and a swimming area for the brave at the base of Punchbowl Falls (which I may or may not have jumped off of some years ago).

All in all, we had a fantastic three-day trip in the Gorge, even without seeing any of the major waterfalls.  It really is a spectacular place with so much to offer.