Hiking On Paved Trail With Trekking Poles

One of the magnificent falls.


Sunday, September 2 (hard to believe that it is already September -- where has the year gone?) Today I drove 3 and a half hours to The Gorge to see Dave Matthews Band perform. The Gorge Amphitheater is a 20,000 concert venue located above the above the Columbia River Gorge in George, Washington (middle of nowhere in Washington). The concert was awesome. Well worth the drive even if it meant getting back to Trout Lake at 3:30 in the morning.

On Labor day, Karlena and I went to Historic Oregon City where we learned about the Oregon Trail, went on a walk of the McLoughlin Historic District. A couple of Oregon City facts: 1844 - first incorporated community west of the Missouri River; 1850 - First federal court and land office on the Pacific Coast accepts and records City of San Francisco plat; 1899 - First long distance commercial electric power transmission in the United Stated from Oregon City to light 55 street lights in downtown Portland.

After half a day of work, Karlena and I went on a waterfall marathon hike on Wednesday. We decided to drive along the old Columbia River highway and hike to waterfalls. The hiking was very beautiful through lush green rainforest. One of the main waterfalls is Multnomah Falls. Multnomah Falls is the second tallest year round waterfall in the nation. The trail to the view at the top of the waterfall is paved switchbacks which is why I titled this post as "Hiking On Paved Trail With Trekking Poles."

On Thursday, I went on a hike with a group from the center to Indian Heaven. We hiked around a couple of lakes and I did some Huckleberry picking. There were so many huckleberries out that, it was hard for me to stop picking them.

Tomorrow we head out with another team on a 5 day natural history trip in the north cascades. We will be canoing on Ross Lake. The best part about this trip, is we don't have to do any preparation beforehand like planning a menu, grocery shopping, packing the food. I am so excited. The weather is supposed to be excellent this week.