Dam!The second day in Portland was the beginning of the fitness portion of our vacation, namely hiking along the Colombia Gorge. The river is enormous and surrounded by breathtaking scenes. We drove along a historic highway to see some nice scenes. Our first stop was just at a scenic overlook (bottom center). We took advantage of a little pedestal to get one of only a few pictures of both of us. Then we did a short stop at the Vista House (bottom left). It's pretty, but kind of unclear why it's there. The weather all week was in the low 70s at best, and it made for some really comfortable hiking weather. We decided to do Angel's Rest, which is 5-5.5 miles round trip. First, you go straight up to the highest point in the treeline (bottom right). The you come down. The way up is pretty shaded, but there was no question at any time that we were going up (top left). There were lots of viewpoints to see straight down (middle center), across the river at some beautiful cliffs and periodically trains weaving their way through tunnels through the cliffs. The hike was challenging, but not too intense. We both took our jackets but found we didn't really need them as we worked up a sweat. The scenes from the top (top right) were just beautiful. We even met a really cute beagle with its owner on its way down. It made us wish Lucy were with us, though she's a bit out of shape these days and is slow on long walks.
After the hike, we got back in the car and headed for Multnomah Falls. We had a light lunch at the restaurant there -- Wes had a tuna melt that was really good, while I had some pretty tasty clam chowder and a salad with some kind of walnut viniagrette -- and then did took a short walk to the falls themselves (middle left). There are pictures all over Portland of these falls. Picassa blocks pictures to make these collages, but the full picture that shows the full 600+ feet of falls is really pretty. We walked up to the bridge, but -- obviously -- took the picture from below.
Next we went to one of the local fish hatcheries. These are all over the area and are used to restock the lakes that are sometimes overfished. There are spawning rooms and pools of little tiny fish all the way up to full size fish. We saw salmon, trout, and even enormous sturgeon. The best part of the hatchery, though, was the museum on the dam. The Colombia has a huge dam along it, but since it's plentiful in salmon, wildlife services had to create a way for them to swim upstream each year. So they built a fish ladder (middle right). Basically, when the fish get to the dam, they approach a series of stairs covered by water. The fish swim to the edge of the stair and literally jump up to the next level. Wes and I must have stood for 10 minutes or more just watching the fish jump from stair to stair (difficult to catch on camera, but fun to watch). Just beneath, you can watch the fish underwater swimming against the current (top middle). Occasionally you'll see a fish fly backwards across the window, worn out by fighting the current. There was some interesting information on the fish's return swim to the birthplace for spawning. Salmon always go back to where they were born to spawn, including those born at hatcheries along the Colombia. But, if the salmon encounter problems along the way, they will find alternatives. When Mt. Saint Helen's erupted some years back, it left the water to littered with runoff for the fish to make it. So when they hit the debris, they just found a fork nearby and spawned there. After the water cleared, they started returning to their original places for spawning. Although it's environmentally unclear to me why the fish return to their birthplace to spawn, it is very impressive.
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