Elowah Falls

Early this morning I went exploring a new waterfall hike in the Gorge. The drive down "the ditch" was awesome–the shroud of clouds constantly revealing the gigantic tree-covered walls towering above me. I drove about 20 miles west towards Portland on 84 to the trailhead for Elowah Falls. Part of the trail system here is a section of the Pacific Crest Trail.

Before heading to Elowah Falls, I followed a spur trail of steep swichbacks about a mile up to Upper McCord Creek Falls. Pretty cool, right?


























After exploring Upper McCord Creek a bit, I hiked to the base of Elowah Falls.


















































This waterfall is AMAZING! It's so forceful that it creates giant waves in the pool below and a constant, soaking cloud of mist that literally drenched me in thirty seconds flat. It felt like standing in a crazy carwash. A great breath of fresh air on a Sunday morning. On my way out, I passed the only two people I saw on the trail. They said, "how is it down there?" and i replied, with water dripping down my nose, "WET." The guy said, "really?"– sounding a little concerned while shooting his wife a dirty look – since they were sans raingear. i laughed.

Last weekend, we went to Lost Lake, which boasts an incredible view of Mount Hood on clear days. The plan was to go there with some watercolors to draw and paint the mountain. It rained like crazy, but we decided to go anyway. You can never go wrong in Oregon, rain or shine. I'm really glad we went.


























It was a little chilly at Lost Lake and it actually snowed on us at one point!
There's a really cool trail that circles the whole lake.


At many spots around the lake, there are great places for picknicking right on the water. I'll be back to bbq in the summers for sure.


Two weekends ago, we went to Willamette National Forest for the weekend to bike the McKenzie River Trail. We hitchhiked 24 miles with our bikes to pick up the trail at Clear Lake. This lake is so cold that there is a forest preserved under water!


It was chilly willy. Frost and all.


























Clear Lake is big with fishermen.


























And a fun place to take photographs. :)
I heart national parks AND national forests.
Hope you liked the quickie of a few of the places we've been in the past month.