Along the Columbia Gorge

When the ancient Columbia River cut its path through the bedrock of what would become the border between Oregon and Washington, it did a much more effective job than the smaller tributaries along its path. As a result, these streams created waterfalls.



This stretch of river is unique in that it gives the casual traveller the opportunity to see six impressive waterfalls within a few steps of the road, including Multnomah Falls which is the second highest (600 feet) year-round drop in America. (Sometimes they go a long way to come up with criteria to elevate the importance of something.)






A little further upriver is the Bonneville Dam, not too remarkable compared to Hoover or Grand Coulee or Shasta or Glen Canyon. But dams on the Columbia, such as Grand Coulee and Bonneville, are different from most we see elsewhere because they were created mainly for power generation, and not to manage water levels - floods and droughts.

And at the Bonneville sight, the flow of the mighty Columbia is such that the spillway continuously dumps millions of gallons of water downstream while two huge dams on either side of the spillway funnel water through turbines to generate millions of megawatts for both the Oregon and the Washington sides. Another achievement of the Depression-era.