Allen Throop/For Mid-Valley Sport The Eagle Creek Trail carves a rugged path from the Columbia River high into the Cascades of northern Oregon, following the picturesque Eagle Creek. At times, only an iron guardrail protects hikers from a 100-foot plunge into the creek.

Gorgeous!

Eagle Creek special even by Gorge standards

By Allen Throop
For Mid-Valley Sports

EAGLE CREEK — "Looks like it will burn off soon," Bob stated with conviction as the mist of the Columbia River Gorge swallowed our car.

We were headed for a trailhead, so he tried hard to ignore the rain.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the rain our two days of hiking in the gorge were idyllic.

Three of the four of us had never hiked the Eagle Creek Trail. Our trail expert was convinced that it was the quintessential Oregon hike.

The guidebook seems to agree with her opinion but pointed out that trailhead parking is difficult to find after 8:30 a.m., and isolation from other hikers is impossible.

But by choosing a wet weekday in early spring, we were rewarded with an empty parking lot and a collage of flowers, rocks, trees, moss, lichen and even waterfalls that fair-weather crowds never see.

In dry weather or wet, the Eagle Creek Trail quickly sorts out the serious hiker from the timid. The expression "they don't build them like they used to" certainly applies to this trail.

The people who designed and built the Columbia River Scenic Highway in 1915 also had the vision to build the Eagle Creek Trail.

Once they decided that a trail was needed to entice the highway tourists to stay, simple obstacles like vertical cliffs were not going to stop the road or trail builders. They had plenty of experience blasting ledges for the highway, so blasting a four-foot wide trail into the side of a cliff was an easy task.

No one asked for an environmental impact statement back then — they just built the trail.

The original crews approached the project with a good plan and with plenty of dynamite. Their handiwork has stood the test of time.

While the footing is rock-solid, the surface is rough. The basalt overhead alternately drips or cascades water onto the trail.

A cable handrail is firmly attached to the inside wall, leaving hikers exposed to a drop of over 100 feet into the creek.

Such exposure must weed out some hikers, but still, in summer the trail is busy. On our chosen wet day in late March, we encountered few others.

Even without counting the water falling from the cliffs directly onto the trail, we saw at least 10 times the number of waterfalls that exist in the summer. Whether they're high, broad, misty or complex, the gorge has them in abundance in spring.

An incredible variety of green colors dominated the views.

The moisture and soft light brought out colors in the moss, the lichen and the ferns that moved them to center stage from their normal role as bit players.

Dark green, yellow-green, blue-green, gray-green, lemon-green — each species claimed a distinctive color. Spring flowers, including trillium, glacier lilies and bleeding hearts, were blooming but blended into the green rather than standing apart, as they will by early summer.

The big-leafed maples demanded our attention for spring attire and the new buds.

Green moss, lichen and ferns covered the branches. Once the leaves return, this understory of life will be masked from view again but during our visit they were often dramatically silhouetted against the gray sky or the black basalt cliffs.

The tip of each branch had a bursting bud on our first day, which turned into a cascading flower by the second day.

Our timing was perfect.

The lack of leaves allowed us to see through the trees. We had many views of falls from spots where the June visitor will enjoy only the sound of water and a mosaic of maple leaves with few visible hints of the falls behind.

As our group hiked upstream, we continually changed our clothing mix, not to meet some fashion whim but in reaction to the changing weather.

When the mist turned to a deluge, full GoreTex was appropriate. As soon as a shower passed, the rain gear was too hot so off it came along with a layer of fleece if the sun was out.

All changes were accompanied by Bob's incantation: "Looks like it will burn off soon."

After hiking about 41/2 miles, we had a snack and turned around. Tunnel Falls, another 11/2 miles upstream, is noteworthy for the tunnel that takes hikers behind the falls rather than for the falls itself, but as I'm a slower hiker than I used to be, we decided to enjoy the magnificent views at a leisurely pace rather than go for distance. The trip out proved to be as fascinating as the walk in since the views were entirely different. The shifting combinations of green vegetation, sun and water were kaleidoscopic.

After a meal, a shower, and a night in a great bed and breakfast, we headed out for a second day that proved as stimulating as the first. The Tanner Creek Trail starts with a large waterfall that ends, literally, at the hikers' feet and then disappears under a bridge. All other falls that we saw flow over basalt; this one ripples over sedimentary rocks giving it a distinctive form. The trail next climbs gently up into a wide amphitheater where Wahcella Falls is the summer star. Top billing was shared with many other falls on the day of our visit.

The great amphitheater surrounding it dwarfs Wahcella Falls. The absence of maple leaves allowed much better views than usual of the wide, rounded canyon, which is far too large to have been carved by Tanner Creek. The sculpted canyon, along with most of the waterfalls, is a reminder of the huge floods that filled the Columbia Gorge with up to 1,000 feet of fast-flowing floodwater numerous times near the end of the last ice age. Those gigantic floods were instrumental in making the gorge the special place it is.

The trail to Wachella Falls is only a mile long so we were back at the trailhead well before lunch as yet another squall rolled through the gorge. We continued with visits to lesser-known falls, with a stop at Elowah Falls. The trail to the top , like the Eagle Creek Trail, was blasted across the face of a cliff but this trail has smother footing and a railing on the outside. From our vantagepoint we could watch fishermen lined-up in boats patiently awaiting the next bite. Not far from the boats, a seal appeared to be simply enjoying the water and waves.

A stop at Multnomah Falls seemed mandatory, but only for coffee. The wide paved trail, espresso bar, and hordes of people even on a rainy day have turned the falls into a circus. We escaped to Upper Latorell falls to recapture the mood of water, moss, lichens and quiet.

The geologic story so dramatically displayed in the walls of the gorge draws me back again and again. Had I been alone, I might have found excellent reasons to spend two days curled up with a book in front of a fire. By ignoring the weather I discovered a green, living aspect of the Columbia River Gorge, one more marvel in our state's outstanding natural history.

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