Hiking around Multnomah

Yesterday we hiked 11 miles in the Columbia River Gorge, which is about a half hour drive from our house. Our trail began at Wahkeena Falls.






Go go gadget arm!


As we climbed uphill, we crossed several waterfalls.

After several miles of climbing uphill, we stopped here for some lunch and cooled our feet in the icy stream.

This is Angel's Rest Lookout, which affords hikers an incredible view of the Columbia River Gorge in both directions. The trail will take you all the way to the edge of the rocks.

The Gorge was breathtaking!

About 10 miles later, we came out above Multnomah Falls. This photo (above) was taken at the beginning of our mile and a half descent to the bottom.

One of the waterfalls just above Multnomah...

That's me on the right. After 10 miles of solitude, it feels sort of strange to emerge in spot with so many people. They're all staring at the majesty of Multnomah. And they don't stink as much as we do.

Twice I have stood at the very top and looked straight down. It's amazing and a tad terrifying. When we made it back to the car, my feet were on fire, my muscles aching, my clothes filthy, and my new shoes officially broken in. Needless to say I slept like a rock.

Multnomah

Well, we made it back home Thursday evening, and I still can't seem to get caught up...despite the fact that I cleaned the house before we left in an attempt to return to a calm, organized environment after our vacation. I hate feeling like I need a vacation from the vacation, you know?

Our camping tent is airing out in the backyard. Laundry is somehow multiplying rapidly, and the hallway feels claustrophic from all the camping gear we've yet to put away.

However, yesterday we pressed pause on housework and spent the day hiking together around Multnomah (which I will gladly post photos for shortly). We hiked about 11 miles, starting at Wakeenah (sp?) trailhead, hiking up to the top of the ridge and then over to Angel's Rest (highly recommend this lookout point. Well worth the work. You can see the entire Gorge in both directions from up there). From there we hiked back eastward and came out way above Multnomah Falls. Most people (including myself) do not realize that there are actually about three more really cool waterfalls above the famous Multnomah. The ice cream cone at the end of the journey was possibly the best I've ever tasted and the view from the top of the falls is breathtaking. Photos to come shortly....

Home!

We arrived home last night, and I must say it feels wonderful to sleep in my own bed again. We had an amazing trip through Montana and northern Idaho. Bruce and I hiked well over 30 miles within the 4-5 days we devoted to hiking.

Since we spent so much time in the car over the last two weeks, we listened to two audio books: 1) Night by Ellie Wiesel, which was a horrifying journey of his survival of the Holocaust. Why would we listen to something so dark and heavy on our vacation? First of all the selection of audio books at the library was slim and secondly, it provoked some great dialogue between Bruce and I about the nature of suffering, faith, doubt, as well as countless other difficult questions about God's nature which we discussed at length during our trip. 2) The Long Walk, which is an amazing true story about prisoners in Siberia during WWII who escaped prison and bascially walked 4000 miles to their freedom in India (crossing Siberian wilderness, the Gobi desert and the Himalayas, for starters). Amazing story. I thought about these guys quite a bit when I found myself tempted to complain when I grew tired on our meager 10-mile hike one day. 3) We also listened to several episodes of the Twilight Zone, which was highly entertaining. Jason Alexander read for the episode "Obsolete Man", which was my favorite of the episodes we listened to.

Stay tuned for photos and stories about our trip...

Camping

Steve, Bruce, and I are camping in Montana for almost two weeks. How am I blogging and camping at the same time you ask? Well that's a long story I'll have to tell when we return home. Think Chevy Chase and the Wally World fiasco and you'll have an idea of our trip thus far.

Aside from the "meager" complications of the last four days (which involve locking keys in vehicle and two flat tires....oh did I mention we camped way out the backcountry?), I'm not sure how it's possible but we are having such a wonderful time (though I have invoked the "we-will-have-fun-if-we-have-to-hire-a-plastic-surgeon-to-implant-smiles-on-our-faces" warning. More than once). Thankfully we have had no trouble with the grizzly-infested woods of Montana. Of course it helps when you roll into camp at 1am and your car alarm goes off. Twice. So while we don't need pepper spray we certainly needed a car alarm exorcist.

Two days ago Bruce and I hiked a total of 8 miles along Blodgett Creek nestled in a stunning canyon on the eastern front of the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness. As we walked along I said, "Bruce, I feel like we forgot something.". Bruce replied, "We did. It's called stress.". We had a blast hiking all day, soaking ourselves in the mountain stream to cool off, taking more photos than we know what to do with, and even stopping along the way to take a nap near the rushing rapids in the creek (ok I took the nap; Bruce just lounged). We returned to camp sore, tired, sunburned, and thoroughly at peace with the universe.

So despite the "complications" that I'm sure we'll laugh about someday, we are having a blast in some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen.