Looking across the Columbia River at Wind Mountain from Indian Point on the Oregon side of the Gorge.
Driving to the large trailhead at the bottom of Dog Mountain, Washington Highway 14 drives right around the base of another smaller peak with its own form of drama, Wind Mountain. A beautiful cone-shaped peak, Wind has a brother, Shellrock Mountain, on the opposite side of the Columbia River in Oregon. Both mountains are thought to be from the same volcanic intrusion which needed to be cleaved in half by the Columbia River. Unlike Shellrock, Wind Mountain has a trail to the top.
Of the three Army posts erected around the periphery of the Oregon Coast Indian Reservation, Fort Umpqua is the most forgotten. The State has made Fort Yamhill into a Park. Benton County has done the same with Fort Hoskins. Fort Umpqua lies hidden on the wrong side of the mouth of the Umpqua River, hidden by sand, vegetation and time.
Original Fort Walla Walla trading post at the confluence of Snake and Columbia Rivers.
Today’s fort is the fourth to go by this name. The first fort was a fur-trading post opened by the North West Company. The post was built at the confluence of the Walla Walla and Columbia Rivers. Established in 1818, the post ran until abandoned and burnt down during the 1855 Yakima War. A steamboat landing settlement sprang up a few years later. The remains now all under the waters backed up from the McNary Dam some miles further down the Columbia.
Waters of Glenn Creek freefalling at Golden Falls.
Hidden away in the Coast Mountains of Coos County is a small state Park preserving two of Oregon’s more spectacular waterfall treasures – Golden and Silver Falls. The two falls are among the highest and most dramatic found west of the Cascades. Hiding at the end of a long road which gets narrower and wilder as you travel back into the mountains, the park is one of Oregon’s lonelier state parks. Drive to the road’s end and magic begins.
Above Elowah Falls looking across the Columbia River to Hamilton and Table Mountains beyond.
Many waterfalls await discovery in Oregon. Some of the best are found in the Columbia River Gorge. Some are out there obvious to all while some like to hide away from prominent view. Multnomah Falls is the tallest and one of the most majestic. A large car park built in between the lanes of the freeway tries to accommodate the many who come for a visit. It is a standard by which others are measured. The Northwest Waterfall Survey rates Multnomah at 89.92 points. The falls are enchanting, but some of the magic wears off with the crowds you endure to witness. McChord Creek calls.
Driving up the Gorge on a Thursday in April, the car park at Multnomah Falls was, as normal, completely full. Five miles further east on the freeway, I-84, there were two cars parked at the Yeon State Park lot just off the freeway. Granted, two of the three trails leading out from here were closed – one from a fire in 2017 and another from a recent landslide this winter – but the one trail still open was pure enchantment.
Looks like a two-pound cannon, one of two on the east side of the Parade Ground with Officer’s Row on the opposite side. Artillery would have consisted more probably of M1841 mountain howitzers.
Of the many military posts erected by the US Army during the 19th century, few remain as well preserved as the collection of buildings found here in the middle of the Yakama Nation at Fort Simcoe. The post was only manned for three years before the fort was abandoned; the men sent north to Fort Colville.
Brevet Captain George McClellan’s party, in 1853, found traces of gold along the upper reaches of the Naches or Yakima Rivers. They searched for a railroad route over the Cascades, something McClellan continually stressed when meeting with Natives from the local Yakama tribes.
A restored version of James Madison Alden’s triptych view over Fort Dalles. Fort Dalles Museum.
Fort Dalles was one of the original forts set up by the Army as it came west after the 1846 treaty with Great Britain solidifying borders on the 49th parallel. Before 1855, the fort was a small fort with room for one or two companies of troops. The Yakama War changed that. From the middle of 1856 until the beginning of 1859, the fort became one of the Army’s main centers in the Northwest. Home for the Ninth Regiment, Fort Dalles became the jump-off point for campaigns, interior explorations, road, and fort building and a supply depot for all these activities.
Steamboats making for the Cascade Locks near the Upper Cascades later in the 19th century. Fort Lugenbeel was just around the corner to the left.
Fort Cascades served as the main post comprising several blockhouses set up to defend the vitally important transportation corridor along the Columbia River through one of the treacherous points along the river.
The Oregon Trail was a long and perilous route. Perhaps the most difficult section lay almost at the trail’s end as it made its way through the Cascade Mountains to the promised lands of the Willamette Valley. Once the Trail dropped down out of the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon, it followed near the Columbia River. It was possible to float your wagons down much of the river, but most kept to the road leading up and down further to the south of the Columbia. Crossing the John Day and Deschutes rivers were minor difficulties compared to the last difficulty lying ahead in the mountains.
Rocky path with cairns along the way to Mt Adams from Mt Jefferson.
The White Mountains of New Hampshire are seen by many as the pinnacle of mountain ranges in the Northeast and the eastern Seaboard, in general, no malice intended towards the Blue Ridge, Smoky or Adirondack ranges. Topped by Mount Washington – 6,289 feet – the range is historic. The mountain is almost the same height as its namesake in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State – 6,260 feet. That peak being a bit more difficult to climb. Rising above all other peaks in the White Mountains are the Presidents.
Looking down on the former site of Fort Hoskins, literally at the edge of valley and mountain.
Fort Hoskins and Yamhill were two of the earliest uses of the U.S. Army in the newly acquired Northwest lands gained in the middle 1840’s. The sites, long abandoned, have undergone extensive archaeological excavations. Protected as public parks today, a visit gives a fascinating insight into the antebellum Regular Army and the interactions between Native Americans and newly-arrived white settlers intent on occupying new grounds.
