Multnomah Falls

This is the classic view of the falls, mentioned in my post yesterday.  And yesterday's photo was taken from the bridge pictured here.  You can see part of the boulder sitting in the opening under the bridge.  The trail heads up and across the bridge, then continues up to the top of the falls.  The bridge was build in 1914, and a beautiful stone lodge sitting at the base of the falls looks to have been built about the same time.  It currently houses a restaurant, gift shop, and small museum.  In the museum I learned a little of the geology of these falls.  The Columbia River Gorge was formed at the end of the ice age.  According to signs in the museum, the river flooded to carry six times the water in rivers worldwide.  I could have this statistic slightly wrong, but I will say that it was an unfathomable statistic for me.  This massive flood carved through the volcanic rock of the Cascade Range, and the gorge extends the entire 80 mile width of the range. Little tributaries like the Multnomah Creek were left high above the river.  Multnomah Falls is one of 53 falls along the Columbia River Gorge.