We saw earlier how to climb to the top of the Larch Mountain crater from the Columbia River on the 1915 historic Larch Mountain Trail. But you don’t have to gain 4,400 feet over the 6.6-mile trek up to Sherrard Point. You can actually cheat and start at the top. Simply drive up Larch Mountain Road to its end. Fourteen miles up from the Columbia River Highway just west from Crown Point. Park in the large lot near the summit.
Continue readingLook out to the east from Portland and your attention draws to the snows and glaciers of Mt. Hood. But search a bit to the left and you can notice another bulky mountain with a notch on its northern rim. This is Larch Mountain one of three shield volcanoes sitting in a line of volcanic vents making up the Boring Lava Field range stretching from Mount Sylvania on the southwest edge of Portland all the way east past Larch Mountain to Beacon Rock standing near Bonneville Dam, almost thirty miles apart in a straight line.
Larch Mountain sits on the western end of the canyon of the Columbia River Gorge rising just over 4,000 feet above the river running about three straight miles to the north of its peak. Coming from the east along the river, Larch Mountain is the last significant Cascade peak on the Oregon side of the Gorge before the mountains begin to ease topographically into the northern end of the Willamette Valley.
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The union of Oregon Senator James Nesmith and California-Massachusetts rancher-soldier Joseph Hooker worked at high levels within the Federal attempts to quell the rebellion of 1861-1865. The two men were not necessarily meant for each other. However, life has twists and turns. The same turns that brought Hooker into the doghouse with such Federal luminaries as Henry Halleck, William T. Sherman, and Winfield Scott brought Hooker into the light with Nesmith, Edward Baker and most conspicuously, Abraham Lincoln.
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Maps have a magical ability to allow one to travel to places they have and have not been to. They offer an experiential taste. From the late 1920’s until the 1970’s, would-be travelers had options to pick up road maps at no cost from various gasoline stations around the US. My favorites as a child – and even now – fell to those produced by the H. M. Gousha Maps. Vibrant colors accompanied by bright fonts set the maps as a peak for other map companies to reach for in my eyes.
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Waterfalls abound throughout the State of Oregon, especially in the western hills. Abundant rains fall throughout the forests filling streams cascading over lava cliffs. To catch these falls at their height means an off-season journey. Summer season can mean little or no rain for a month or more at a time making the falls seem much tamer than when they are at their fullest. Here, a small collection of waterfalls taken from the area around the Lower Columbia. This area gets pelted with rains out of summer. Astoria averages 86 inches of rain a year – Portland, by contrast, averages a mere 36 inches.
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Until 1940, there really was no fast and easy way to reach the Pacific Coast from the main population center of Oregon – Portland. At first, there were river steamers coming downstream from Portland to Astoria. Then, the train to Astoria with a branch line going further south to Gearhart and Seaside. The first road connection finally came in 1915 with the building of the Lower Columbia Highway, today’s US Highway 30.
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The 1840’s saw emigrants begin to make Oregon – especially the Willamette Valley – a destination of choice. After a brief struggle, newcomers chose to make Salem the capital of the new Territory instead of Oregon City. But Salem was definitely an inland choice. Transportation to the sea was needed to enable easier communication with the rest of the World as opposed to a six-month jaunt across the Rockies. As the 1850’s rolled on, the best choice of a seaport lay at the mouth of the Columbia River – enter the Astoria to Salem Road, military in purported purpose, but strategic thinking lay at the heart.
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Travelling along at 70 mph along Interstate 84 along the Columbia River, it is easy to think Oregon’s mid-19th century pioneers just shuttled along rambling into Portland on Sandy Boulevard in no time at all. Drive out to Well Springs and that idea disappears very quickly. The long drive out here on the south side of the US Navy’s Boardman Bombing Range gives one the best example of what it must have been like to drive a wagon along the Oregon Trail with the end coming finally into view.
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Following the deaths at the Whitman Mission in December 1847, emigrants travelling the Oregon Trail elected to bypass the jaunt of the trail to the north following the descent out of the Blue Mountains. Instead, the new path led down the Umatilla River before heading out across the dry Columbia Plateau roughly parallel to the river about 6-8 miles to the south.
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Pioneers on the Oregon Trail found the crossing of the Blues to be a taxing affair, especially so late in their journey. Some writers have declared the passage over the Blue Mountains as the last big challenge faced by the Overlanders.
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