Tag Archives: Bonneville Fish Hatcheries

FISH HATCHERY – TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR LOST GROUND

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Chinook salmon circling about in a lower holding pond at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery.
Chinook salmon circling about in a lower holding pond at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery.

In the western United States, when something good gets discovered, it seems nothing better to do than to rush to deplete the good – gold, trees, … salmon.  Gold is mined many times at the cost of whatever lived in the area before.  Trees, centuries of age, swept away, sometimes replanted, sometimes not, always with ecological cost.  In the case of salmon, former runs of billions of salmon first suffered from overfishing, taken to extremes.  To finish off the magnificent earlier runs, primeval rivers dammed ending the prehistoric runs.  Fish hatchery to the rescue

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WAHCLELLA FALLS – MYSTICAL MAGIC EXPRESSED IN THE GORGE

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The glory of Wahclella Falls churning under springtime skies.

Wahclella Falls, like its close neighbor, Elowah Falls, is overlooked by many visitors to the Columbia River Gorge. That is not to say the waterfall does not have visitors. It does, just not as many as you might find a little further west in “Waterfall Alley”. On this stretch of the old US Highway 30, you find the Big Five – Lautorell, Bridal Veil, Wahkeena, Multnomah and Horse Tail. There are several other waterfalls to be discovered by short hikes off the highway.

“Magic” defined as “a quality that makes something seem removed from everyday life, especially in a way that gives delight.” The waterfalls encountered here along Tanner Creek easily satisfy the definition. Even after the horrible 2017 wildfire roared through here, magic certainly remains.

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