Columbia river gorge

I'm leaving Oregon Sunday and moving on to Seattle to sojourn with another friend further north. I'd like to see more than just Portland and decided to take a zipcar East on a little field trip following the Willamette River as it merged into the Columbia river gorge. Following the highway hugging the river all the way. Brooding low overcast clouds and choppy waves as the waters widen to a dam and later a wide expanse of windy surf as the Hood river flows in. A famous place for windsurfers I hears...

Not much time to explore, but I proudly managed to mostly evade the crowds of summer time tourists along the gorge's historic highway. Its amazing how predictable most people seem to be and how the herd instinct prevails. Luckily finding some spots all to my self, far from the crowds...easily deterred by a little uphill hiking or creek wading.

I snapped this shot in a place called Oneonta Gorge. A beautiful place of rock and moss and flowing water treading through a narrow canyon filled with ferns and delicate flowers clinging to the rock walls. Eerie and magical, as though fairies or river nymphs might just spring to life at any moment out of the still pools or rock hollows. Walking through a living fable, a story book world where you can lose yourself all alone. Wading up to the waste and ducking sculpted logs of cedar laid haphazard across the narrow openings weaving up to a lonely white wall of falling water full of grace.