Friday July 1- Travel from Seaside to Troutdale, Historic Rt. 30, Vista House, Columbia River Gorge, Waterfalls

Posted on July 4, 2011 by deniselg

Travel day… We woke up this morning to a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky! We drove south on Hwy 101 to Rt. 26 east to Portland, then south on I 405 to I-5 N, then I-84 east. There was a lot of traffic in Portland, due to the 4^th of July weekend. We were really glad that we drove through early! We arrived at Sandy Riverfront Resort, in Troutdale, at 12:00.

It was an easy check in and we moved into our site, which was next to a 2005 Alfa motor home.

We set up then ate a quick lunch. We took the dogs and drove down the Historic Columbia River Highway; the road is approximately 75-miles of scenic highway between Troutdale and The Dalles built through the Columbia River Gorge between 1913 and 1922. The RV park is just inside the highway, in the town of Troutsville. Our first stop was at the Women’s Forum viewpoint. This was our first view of the gorge.

We could see the Vista House in the distance, which was our second stop.

The Vista House was built in the 1920’s as a place for people to view the gorge. Interestingly, at one point in history, the water was up to where we were standing! Down below us was I-84.

Highway 30 was the brainchild of lawyer and entrepreneur Sam Hill and engineer Samuel C. Lancaster, built between 1918 and 1922. There are 77 falls on the Columbia River, we only visited 5.

The first waterfall we reached was La Trourell Falls.

The hike up to this falls was pretty steep, but short. The second falls was Bridal Veil Falls,

which was a ¾ mile hike, the first 2/3 downhill and the last 1/3 uphill. Of course, that was reversed in the opposite direction. It was a pretty hard climb and both of us were exhausted afterwards. Even the dogs were tired! The third falls we visited was Wahkeena Falls.