Multnomah in Winter

A very frosty view of Multnomah Falls.
So far this winter we've either had rain or cold.
 For today's scene: cold!

Multnomah Falls in the Mist

A very misty drive into the gorge this week to finish setup of my photos at North Shore Cafe. I took a short detour on Hwy 30, including a stop at Multnomah Falls.

Multnomah Falls #2

We headed to Eastern Washington on Saturday, and that means crossing into Oregon to drive along I-84, which is a much faster road than the one on the Washington side.  I'd have to be in an awful hurry not to stop at Multnomah Falls driving on 84, and in this terrific drizzle and fog, there was no way I wasn't stopping; the view was just too interesting to pass up.  When we approached by car, the fog was so thick at the top of the falls that it looked like they fell straight from the clouds.  By the time we parked and I got my camera out the fog had shifted.  This was that first photo, taken from the parking lot.

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. 

Seeing Green

For a nice change of pace, today we headed over to Multnomah Falls about a half hour east of Portland along the Columbia River.  I'll post the classic view tomorrow; today I like this more Zen shot of the pool midway up the falls.  And I especially like that mossy boulder in the front.  I would hate to have been here when that thing fell!  To get to this spot, we had to climb up a series of switchbacks with cable netting along the cliff wall.  Based on its shape, it looked like the netting had already caught lots of rock slides, although thankfully today it was just catching leaves.  Anyway, it's another green post for me...and I can see that the trick around here will be photographing "not green."  Just like the trick in the Central Valley was photographing "not brown."  I"ll work on that in the future, but tomorrow's photo of the falls will most definitely be green!