More Pictures along the way - April 15 - Columbia River Gorge

After a day off on Monday (down time to recharge our batteries), we decided to head out east from Portland to see the Columbia River gorge. It was not what I expected. I had pictured Grand Canyonesque rock walls with the river down in a deep narrow gorge. Instead, it is a wide gorge with the river being the boundry between Oregon on the south (right in the picture below) and Washington state on the north (left side of the picture). With the clouds and rainy weather it is really awesome. We missed the first turnoff to take us up to Vista Point but saw a sign for Bridal Veil falls and decided to check them out. We found that it was going to be a strenuous walk down and back but we decided to give it a go. Below is a picture of the creek below the falls as seen from up on the path.
There were a variety of different flowers growing along the way as we walked down the path toward the falls.
When we got to the bottom of the path, we discovered that we had to cross the creek below the falls on a wooden bridge and then climb a good set of stairs. Here is Diane starting up the stairs to the falls.
The lower falls are really and have a lot of water driving down them.
The full upper and lower falls are really beautiful. There is a bridge over the top of the upper falls that we drove over on our way into the area but never realized the falls were below it.
After viewing the falls, we started back. After crossing the bridge at the foot of the falls we had to go up more stairs before we got to the actual path back to the parking lot.
Here is Diane on the path back up after the stairs.
In an area by the parking lot were these yellow flowers. The leaves looked like holly leaves but the flowers were bright yellow.
After we left the bridal veil falls, we headed back toward Vista Point to see what we had missed. At Shepherd's Dell, we stopped to look at another set of falls. To the left of the falls were these rock formations towering over the trail.
The falls at Shepherd's Dell
After Shepherd's Dell, we stopped at Latyourell Falls.
The falls were a straight drop down, not running over other rock crashing at the bottom.
We finally got to Vista Point. the view was amazing and the clouds really made it dramatic.

After Vista Point, we drove back down past Bridal Veil Falls to see what came next. We came to Wahkeena Falls. I didn't find them as impressive as they meandered down the hill across rocks and just were not as dramatic. I prefer a lot of tumbling water falling down and hitting a pool at the bottom. Still cool, however.We finally got to Multnomah Falls, which are the ones written up in all the tour books.
They are very impressive. The upper falls fall into a pool and then the water drops again to the bottom. the bridge in front make it very picturesque.

I personally like the upper falls crashing behind the bridge and then the lower falls crashing down. The water from the upper falls is more of a spray at this point and with the bridge and top of the lower falls just makes a great picure.

The last falls we saw were Horsetail falls. It was raining at this point so we took our pictures from the car. If you hike back from Horsetail falls, there is a smaller set called Ponytail falls but at this time of the year, it is difficult to get to them. I think you have to cross a creek that in the summer is easy, now would be going about chest deep in the stream.
We headed back to the hotel after seeing the falls as it was raining and not very good sightseeing weather.

Tuesday evening, I went to the Urban Wineworks in Portland, run by Brick Creek Cellars from Willamette Valley. Diane saw an ad in a local wine newspaper that the Wineworks offered a short class on blending wines and convinced me I should go. There were 5 of us and the instructor. She had us taste three wines in a blind tasting and has us try to identify the wines through smell and taste. I am not very good at that but she did give us some tips. All three wines were from the Walla Walla, Washington area. There was a young Merlot (2006), a Cabernet Sauvignon (2006) and a Syrah (2005) from Abeja Winery. She talked to us about how and why blending is done. We had three beakers, each holding one of the wines above and a small plastic syringe. We tried different combinations under her direction and then she left us for about 20-30 minutes to come up with our own blends. When we were each satisfied with our personal blend, she then blended a full bottle for each of us with our own blend. It was a fun experience and I appreciate the complexities and difficulties of blending wine and getting the quality that is the norm.