Ainsworth SP

I have to begin by mentioning here that Richard has supernatural sunglasses. For years, any time the weather starts to turn from winter clouds to hints of spring sunlight, he gets excited and changes the lenses from rose colored, to dark. Without fail, the weather turns back again and it rains solid for weeks on end. It is such a mysterious and yet predictable phenomenon that now he uses his powers to control the skies. We have been very lucky with weather on this trip, and we attribute that to the fact that he has kept his rose lenses in. Now that we are looking at the tail end of our trip, we know we’ll be heading into the kind of heat that could ruin plans. He went ahead and put in his dark lenses Friday night, so that northern California will cool down two weeks from now. And crazily enough, even though sunny skies were predicted by all weather apps for the entire day on Saturday, we woke up to light rain and solid overcast skies. It not only rained on the drive, but there were lightning strikes. I’m not kidding you guys, there is something paranormal about his sunglasses.

In any case, biking the Columbia River Gorge has been one of the primo destinations for this trip, especially now that I have an e-advantage. We planned for a stop at a Safeway in Troutdale (great Safeway, btw), and then a drop off at the trailhead in Troutdale. From there to the campground was 22 miles and took him an hour and 42 minutes. I towed to the campground, spotted an Alto on the road ahead of me, and got set up. Right away I was frustrated by the dropped cell service in the campground, so I put up the booster antenna. That worked somewhat better, but still not great. Irritating.

Since we only booked two nights here, we needed to do some logistics thinking to maximize what we could do on the bike trail. It is actually fairly confusing. There are three long sections on the gorge that are bike/pedestrian trails. Then there are some connecting sections that take you on historic Highway 30. Some of that is nice, but some of that is narrow and full of touring cars. Then other sections take you on less trafficked surface roads. There is one six mile leg that forces you onto Highway 84, and that would definitely be the low point of the journey from Troutdale to The Dalles. Richard remembered the ride as being one of his all time highlights, but after he did the section from Troutdale this time, he realizes that what he is probably remembering is the last part, between Mosier and The Dalles. He was confused by his memories and questioned whether he was on the right road, since it really was not near the river for this part.

In addition to wanting to ride parts of the gorge with him, I also had a couple of places I wanted to see. One of them is Multnomah Falls, a place I have passed on the highway several times now, without stopping. It’s kind of a tourist scene and not easy to just spontaneously stop, especially with a trailer. So it was on the list as a must do this time. The other place was the Oneonta Gorge. We figured out that really, I didn’t need to bike any part of the route to the west of Ainsworth; it’s just not that inspiring a ride. So, for the rest of the day, we drove to hiking trails and viewpoints, saving Multnomah for the end of day when there would be fewer people.

The hike up to Triple Falls was beautiful. It’s steep and mostly up all the way there, but the falls are cool and unique looking. There is a three way chute that has gotten cut through the rocks, thus the name Triple. It’s worth it to go all the way to the log bridge, and also worth it to take a downhill spur to see Middle Oneonta Falls from the bridge. This trail is about two miles to get to Triple Falls, so four miles for the out and back.

We stopped at Horsetail and Wahkeena Falls, both of which are lovely in their own way. We waited until dusk for Multnomah and oh my goodness. It is worth the hype, though its beauty would be diminished I think if you had to view it through crowds and pay for parking. This was the perfect way to experience this wonder on earth. It is basically like seeing Rivendell appear before you in real life. It does not seem real and even the low light pictures I took with my iphone look like they could be made into a poster. It is that photogenic. Amazing.

The next day we planned to ride the trail together heading east. Right away we got all confused because of the way the route is chopped up between bike trail and road. We found a helpful sign that lays out the entire bike route, noting important things like where it takes you on 84, where it’s a bike path, and where it’s on a road shared with cars. We ended up deciding to take it in out and back sections, using the car to frog leap past the not as nice bits. Otherwise we would have been looking at a very long ride.

We set out from the trailhead staging area at John B Yeon State Park, Elowah Falls. Going east, we were on a bike trail that closely parallels the highway. It was nice to not be with cars, but honestly, this stretch wasn’t particularly spectacular. We rode until we got to a huge concrete staircase with little channels on the edges to let your bike tires pull you down to your inevitable death. There was no way in hell I was going to try to keep the reins on my 46 pound ebike all the way down those stairs. Richard is getting really good at unhooking from plans now, so we just bailed right there and rode back. We were shocked there was no information anywhere about there being a three story stairway on the bike trail! (there was totally information about the three story stairway; it was in fact the first item listed on the informational sign that I took a picture of and didn’t read).

Since we had plenty of time, we decided to stop at the Bonneville Dam and see what was there. We stopped at the Fish Hatchery where there is an information center, a gift shop that sells drinks and fudge, and a beautifully landscaped display of lots of fish. We had a nice lunch and laughed at the weather reports, as they kept delaying the predicted sunshine to later in the day. Weather forecasters must have been confused, since they are not aware of the magical sunglasses effect.

We are pretty good now at breaking down the bikes and getting them in and out of the car. It’s a maneuver for sure, but it doesn’t take that much time. We were at the next launching point at Wyeth trailhead in no time. That portion is really really nice. There are four waterfalls to see along the way, and raised bike trails which offer wonderful views of the river. This was more like it!

We made it a treasure hunt to find all of the waterfalls and the only one that is tricky to locate is Lancaster Falls. That one requires a half mile trek up a steep little trail that is unmarked. You catch it at the foot of Hole in the Wall Falls by crossing a small bridge.

With all of the falls crossed off the bingo board, we headed back. By the time we got going, it was time for the afternoon headwind. Man, those gusts do not mess around, especially when you are right beside the highway. It was a big, satisfying day.

To top it all off, heading back to Dory, Richard got news that he is now officially the fourth Levenberg to be employed by the Lafayette School District! He applied for a job as Computer Specialist, which has the huge benefit of being on the same schedule as me. This means vacations will be true vacations for him, for the first time in ten years. He made it work at his last job, but it was always stressful to do these long trips and need to find service all the time. This could be an incredible improvement in the way we just keep swimming. I honestly do love my district and it sure has been good to my family. So happy for him and what a relief!!

Total miles from Seaquest: 94.8, 17.8 mpg. Site B18 full hookups. We are getting frustrated with lame cell service in the site. I put up the booster antenna and that improved it, but it wasn’t fast. Nice to have electric hookups, but sure do prefer internet in the site on long trips. Dump, but non optimal, so used sewer in site. That was fine.