Looking for Paintings - Part 17

Columbia River Gorge, November 25, 2006

Taking the I-5 north out of Portland, across the Columbia River into Vancouver, Washington I took the 14 east and got off that freeway as soon as possible. I switched to the Evergreen Highway about 4 miles down the road and found myself enjoying the drive and the scenery at a much more leisurely pace, saw some great old homes and some gorgeous new estates. I even stopped to compliment one of the owners on his house. You can do that here without people getting nervous or wondering if you're going to sell them something.

Near Washougal is the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge, teeming with geese and a few deer. This shot is facing east where you can see Mt. Hood in the distance. Click on the picture to make it full-screen sized.




East of Washougal the road starts climbing, offering splendid views like this one. The mountain on the left is dusted with snow on the higher elevations, fading down to no snow at lower elevations.




Very high up, the road turned to the left and suddenly there was this sign for Cape Horn. A little past this sign was a small place to pull off the side of the road, but there's not a lot of warning and it's not big enough for more than three cars. I was definitely not expecting the view to the right, and I remember saying something along the lines of, "Gee, what a nice view." Yeah, that was it.

I wish I could present these as a single panoramic shot, but we'll have to settle for three separate images that you can assemble in your heads.




Reminded me of Alaska's Inside Passage, Norway and Switzerland. Please click on the images to get a better look and a bigger look.


That's the road that the previous three images were taken from. I'm now down on Cape Horn Road which I thought would get me down to the shoreline, but there was a gate that prevented me from entering somebody's private property. Snort.

This is Cape Horn Road leading to the gated private property.


I love meandering small roads like this, but it really irks me that there's usually a no trespassing sign, a private property sign or something that deters me from getting around that final bend in the road that would reveal something fantastic.





Approaching Bonneville Dam I spotted this nifty little passageway under the railroad. There's a small sign that says something about this being a private road and permission to use it is reserved for whoever lives on the other side. Snort.

Bonneville Dam. Tourist season is over so a lot of the typical attractions, like the salmon ladder, access to the innards, views from the catwalks are shut down for the winter, so I didn't get much. Besides, I thought my earlier posts on Grand Coulee Dam covered it better.

This is from Bonneville Dam looking west.

Back home in Portland. I'd managed to turn a 100 mile day-trip (according to the map) into a 200 mile drive that took about 6 hours. Typical. Nice storm clouds rolling in from the east, where I just came from.

Next morning, sunrise with Mt. Hood.

Next: Columbia River Gorge a week later and about 30 degrees cooler. Brr...