From July 21-28, Shanthala and I were visiting Hood River, Oregon and hiking and exploring the environs of Columbia River Gorge and WyEast (or Mt. Hood as the English speakers named it). I had hoped to put all the pictures up and write this blog after that, but that’s turning out to be a long-drawn out process. First, I discovered that Flickr has a rather small limit with free accounts and that I couldn’t just post as many pictures as I liked. So, I decided to bite the bullet and create an account with a webhosting site to setup the pictures. Finding a good web hosting site is taking me a little longer than I anticipated and so here is the entry with a few choice pictures.
It was a sweltering night when we landed in Portland Airport on July 21. When we left a week later, it was a trifle cloudy, very windy and a chilly 64 degrees. Unlike the Bay Area where the temperatures tend to cool off in the evening, the nights continued to be sultry in Hood River. Luckily, the soaring temperatures didn’t last very long. We drove out to Hood River, about 60 miles from Portland to the cottage that we had rented in a fruit orchard there. When we woke up in the morning, the view that greeted us was a portend of what our time there was to be like.
The cottage was itself called Mt. Adams, with good reason.
We spent the first day getting ready for the remaining days, doing our grocery shopping at the local Safeway and the rather tiny farmer’s market in Hood River. We drove up to Portland and visited Powell’s books, the largest bookstore in all of the US, taking up a whole block. That day and the next was supposed to be a fiery 100-105 and so we decided to hike on Monday. But Saturday turned out to be so mild and nice, we decided to chance it by climbing Mt. Defiance on Sunday.
Mt. Defiance trail is what they call a “lung buster”. It goes up 5000 feet in 6 miles – out of which about 1.5 miles are flat – to the highest point in the Gorge. We figured if we made the ascent by 11 am, we would be fine given that descents are usually simple. We started by 6 am and hiked amongst tall Douglas Fir trees providing ample shade. Columbia River Gorge is known as the wind-surfing capital of the world since the gorge acts as a wind tunnel. On that day, not a blade of grass moved though that didn’t seem bad as we went up seemingly vertical ridges. There weren’t many viewpoints, but I found one and captured this view of the Gorge looking South towards Stevenson on the Washington Side and Wind Mountain.
We eventually reached a ridge and what turned out to be a false summit. The real summit was another mile and 1100 feet away. But what we saw took our breath away. It was as if we had vaulted over the top of the mountains on the Washington side of the Gorge and could now see the Cascade range and the valleys beyond. I managed to snap a good one of Mt. Rainier and Adams together. 
Once you reach the top, WyEast looks spectacular. But this hike is to be taken more for bragging rights than for the panoramic views. What turned this into the most gruelling hike we had ever done was the soaring heat and complete lack of wind. The steep descent was a workout in itself and Shanthala, unable to sweat it out, began to start suffering severe heat stress and at times she seemed on the verge of a heat stroke. Four litres of water between us was over very quickly and while I hardly drank a sip on the way down, it still seemed little comfort for Shanthala. I began to feel very thirsty and dehydrated as Shanthala stopped almost every 15-20 minutes to cool off. Her fingers and toes had swollen and she was in agony. Given the texture of the trail, loose and sandy in places and very steep, I was worried that she may fall or twist her ankle given her state. What we had going on our side was that it got dark only around 9 PM and so we had almost 10 hours to descend. We finally reached the car park around 3:30 after a 20 minute cooling off break at the first waterfall, which you reach about a mile from the start of the trail.
Shanthala didn’t have any after effects of the hike though we took it easy the next day and just hiked to the gorgeous, tongue-twister of a waterfall in the Mt. Hood wilderness, Tamanawas falls. Dropping 100 feet amongst wildflowers, it was a sight to behold.
We also went to Lost Lake, a breath-takingingly beautiful, if rather crowded even on a weekday, lake from where you get a superb view of WyEast. 
The next day we did the stunning hike to Tunnel Falls. The trail climbs a gentle 1000 feet over 6 miles and is a 12 mile round trip. What made the hike exciting was that it was on a ridge overlooking the gorge with Eagle Creek running through it. At places, it gets narrow and exposed and even though handrails are provided, it can still send your heart pitter-patter, if you’re afraid of heights.
Tunnel Falls itself is a tunnel blasted to create a way around the rather impressive falls. All along the way in this hike as in the Defiance trail, wildflowers dotted the landscape. 
We relaxed the next day again, going up Mt. Hood to Timberline lodge and taking the ski-lift to a height of 7,700 feet where you can ski all year long. Unlike California, we found that many trail heads require that we acquire a forest pass from a ranger station for parking. Luckily, the first time that this happened, we were close enough to the Parkdale Ranger Station from where Shanthala snapped this stunning picture of WyEast. 
Wildflowers ran riot over almost the entire stretch of Hwy 36. I’ll post all those pictures when I setup a site to hold them.
On the final day, we hit the waterfalls along the gorge again including Horsetail Falls and the mighty Multnomah Falls, the fourth tallest waterfall in the country. But the highlight of the day and probably the trip was the hike into Oneanta Gorge. Leora, one of Brad and Tanya’s friends, told us about this hike that was not listed in many of the guidebooks. It is a rather short (maybe a mile) hike to a hidden waterfall, the Oneanta falls. But what makes the hike spectacular is the gorge. Narrow with walls about 150-200 feet above us, with no marked trail, requiring us to clamber over log jams, boulders and wade in waist deep water to reach the falls, it makes for an unforgettable journey. We wondered if this was a teaser for what hiking the Narrows in Zion National Park might be like.
We visited Portland again that evening and met Leora for dinner at Jarra’s, an Ethiopian restaurant east of the downtown. The food was superb, better than the Ethiopian fare that we get in the Bay Area. Leora was a wonderful person to meet and we had a great time, talking about hiking, living and global warming. 
The report would not be complete without mentioning Keith and Chavalla, our hosts at the cottage. They were very friendly, gracious and accomodating. They helped us with our laundry which saved us from having to carry a ton of clothes for the week. They allowed us free access to their fruit trees and we gorged on the cherries. There were lots of other fruits such as pear, apple and nectarine. Finally, the trip was made even more memorable thanks to Pongo, the farm cat. Shy at first, he warmed to us quickly and soon would come running up to us when we called out to him and hang out by the front porch, purring contentedly. Living little Hobbes is always painful for me and having Pongo was a sweet way to remember him. Sadie, the black labrador was a joy to spend the mornings with too.
There is so much more to write about. The spectacular beauty of the place, the kite-surfing that we saw at Mosier, the geology and some history about the place, Portland’s Rose Garden and on and on. As always, I’m scrambling to finish this on a Sunday evening before the rush hour starts on Monday. I remember a fellow passenger on the light rail wearing a T-Shirt that said: “Good Morning, let the stress begin”. While we returned to busy, full lives at the Bay Area, we’ll always remember Hood River with love. 
