Photography of Multnomah Falls

This fall I had the pleasure of having the opportunity to show my cousin around the Portland, Oregon area for a day.

My cousin is from New York, which has its fair share of beautiful hikes, landscapes, and waterfalls to be sure. If you only think of New York as the Big Apple you should really check out one of my posts from trips I have taken out there.

In any case I wanted to show her a little of the many things I love about the greater Portland area and the Columbia Gorge and Multnomah Falls was high on my list. I had never in my 30 years of living in the Pacific Northwest hiked all the way to the top of the falls so I decided to take this opportunity to share that experience with my cousin.

It turns out, it is really steep at parts, but it seems at the spot everyone stops to take a rest or give up, you are basically there. So if you go and feel like you have hit your limit, take a breather and plug on, you are probably really, really close!

The top has a beautiful view of the gorge and you can see the falls as they drop over the cliff. I will say that from the top, that is about all you can see of the large falls, but there is a small falls just before the drop off, and the view of the gorge plus the acompishment were worth the rather short trek.

After we looked over the edge we back tracked a bit to this little bridge which is where Larch Mountain Trail splits off of the Multnomah Falls Trail. I loved how lush and green it was in this spot.

Mt Hood and Downtown Portland

I cannot believe it took me this many years to find this spot in Portland, Oregon! A friend and I decided we are going to try and hike all of Wildwood trail in Forest Park this year and set out this last Sunday to start. We began our hike at the Audobon Society of Portland and walked up to Pittock Mansion where we were able to view downtown Portland and Mount Hood at the same time, it was a beautiful site!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Letters

These photographs were taken just outside of Portland in West Linn, Oregon at the Camassia Natural Area. This is a really easy walk that is stunning at this time if year. It is filled with blue Camas Lilies and little pink flowers, and tons of birds. The Nature Conservancy has supported this area, clearing it of ivy and creating a path so the flowers can be viewed, but protected. I think it is funny there is a sign to the high school that appears to be point at the field of flowers, I mean this area would be a great environment for learning. 🙂

You can join the Weekly WordPress Photo Challenge also just click the link. 🙂

Weekly Photo Challenge: Three (2)

Wow, I can’t believe it! I got another set of three ready to post again this week. These are photos I took almost a year ago that I have many more to edit, and have been meaning to get around to for, well almost a year, ha ha ha.

A friend and I took a hike during flower season last spring at a place called Tom McCall Preserve. I did not realize how steep this hike is when we started out. I had gone to this place with my Mom and my kids a while back, but we stayed on a very flat trail. My friend was totally unprepared to go on such a difficult incline I suspect. However this is a hike that has more than enough breathtaking views to give you a break every step if you wanted to stop that often.

Starting out you are able to look out over the Columbia Gorge and a field of flowers. As you progress up the hill you start to see Mount Adams (I think) peeking up from the North. It soon is completely visible with the gorge situated in view as well.

Along the way you see Indian Paint brush, as well as flowers in purple, yellow, white, and greens. There are butterflies and birds. Plenty to feast your eyes on.

As you make a sudden turn around the bend nearing the vista we stopped at is the definite climax of the hike, where all of a sudden Mount Hood pops up to the West. Bam, seriously I made a huge gasp when I saw it.

Of course it was windy as heck once we made the plateau looking out over Mount Hood (it is the Gorge) so because we did not prepare well for our hike we did not stay an extraordinarily long time. It was a hike well worth it.

 

Icy Days: Multnomah Falls and Lacamas Lake

Back in the middle of November (very early for such cold weather here) it got down right freezing here. There was a stretch of many days in a row where it did not get above 20. That usually happens once a year or so around here, but usually in January or February. During that stretch I ventured out to look at Lacamas Lake, near my house, and could see that it was completely frozen.

I have always wanted to head out to Multnomah Falls when it was frozen, so while my kids were in school I took a very short trip out there to see it. It was not fully frozen, but there was a lot of ice around it. It was beautiful. A few weeks later a huge rock fell and broke a large chunk of this beautiful historic bridge right off. 😦 I guess they think that the freezing conditions probably loosened the rock. It was lucky that it fell in the wee hours of the morning, so no one was hurt. This bridge is usually very busy as it is a view point for the falls as well as a part of the hike to get to the top of the falls. It is currently closed pending…well hopefully getting fixed.

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The entire Columbia Gorge scenic area is just gorgeous. If you ever come out to Oregon or South Washington it is a must see. There are so many waterfalls, with trails that fit any kind of hiking ability. My good friends got married at a place right next to Bridal Veil Falls and hike in their wedding attire to take pictures at the falls before the wedding. It was great.

Maine: Part 3

The days I was in Maine are beginning to blend together, but I think these are all photos from the third day of the visit. My family and I embarked on a boat ride around Bar Harbor and a neighboring island, which is where I took this first set of photos. Some of the summer houses, or cottages, were really beautiful to admire, they all have a great view of the harbor from their windows that is for sure!

This second set of photos was taken on the Rockefeller land on Bar Harbor. From what I was told, the Rockefeller family has been very generous with the land, allowing the public to hike in large portions of it. I hope if I ever have such large expanses of land I will be as willing to allow strangers onto it.

I hope you enjoyed. One more Maine post to go…the rest of the Sunset photos!

Maine: Part 1

 

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I took these pictures on my recent trip to Maine. I went with my family who travels there yearly to catch the last days of fall travel in Bar Harbor. This year the National Parks were closed due to the non-functional National government so we got to experience things differently this year, or so I am told. It was my first trip and I had four days of camping, short hikes, and eating. It is a very strange thing to not have my kids along on a trip and not be in charge of organization or planning a day. It made me feel a bit like a kid again.

The views were beautiful and the weather was amazing. On this day we may or may not have walked on a closed forest road to get to a little beach my family calls pebble beach or stone beach, but they were not sure that was the real name. This beach is covered in rocks that get tumbled by the ocean and are very smooth. They feel great, and the sound of the waves washing over them and rolling back out to see is very relaxing. On the walk out to the beach we happened upon a beautiful bald eagle overlooking the ocean.

I am also fitting this post into the weekly photo challenge which is ONE, well there was one bald eagle, one stone, and one pear pictured in the photos for this post. I hope you enjoy them. 🙂

Dried Sea Weed

Bald Eagle

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Layers

Hello everyone. I might actually be a head of the game this week as far as the weekly photo challenge goes! I have thought about the challenge layers and came up with these photos; taken in an ice cave near Mount Adams.

This is a really neat place to visit, but I highly recommend a few things: a helmet (my kids had them but the adults didn’t and my uncle bumped his head pretty hard), something on your feet to help walk on ice, warm clothes including gloves, and a head lamp. It was probably 90 degrees outside but in the cave it was (obviously) below freezing, which is a big shock going from the sunny 90 degree day.

You can join along in  the Weekly Photo Challenge by going here and reading the directions and signing up for the weekly e-mail.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Masterpiece

A few weeks ago I went camping and hiking with my family. We traveled over to the Mount Adams National Forest area by Trout Lake and went on a hike that was really beautiful. Although the up close view of Mt. Adams was amazing the most striking thing to me was these flowers that were covering parts of the forest floor. They were especially prevalent in an area of the forest that had been burned in a forest fire a year or two ago. Although I could have probably spent the entire day just photographing these flowers I did not have that luxury but I did get a few minutes to stop and photograph them on the way back along with my Mom and my Uncle.

I think that nature itself is a masterpiece and all you need to do is take a minute to stop and look. Here is my photo representing masterpiece, and I do plan on post more from this 15 minutes by the side of the road as well as the rest of the trip…stay tuned 😉

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

Looking up on a hike on April 7 I caught a view of this woodpecker. It was a bit of a difficult target to photograph because it was darting from tree to tree up it made stop at one near me for a few minutes to peck at the tree.

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