#8~Wahkeena Falls to Multnomah Falls

at the base of Wahkeena Falls
Monica, Simone, Megan, and Kyle

Completed: 3/25/11

Rating: 3.5 stars

Difficulty: Moderate

Time: 3 hours

Length: 5.2 miles

In our hiking book, the author wrote that when he has friends visit this is the hike he takes them on first. So when my friend, Simone, came out to visit from Missouri this is where we went her first day! Our friend, Monica, also came along because it was her last day on SPRING BREAK! so she wanted to get a good hike in! We were very happy they joined us!

We parked our car at the Multnomah Falls lodge and viewing area and took the trail that follows the road (to keep people off the narrow highway) so we could make this hike a loop! We stopped at Wahkeena Falls to get some pictures before we started the steep switchbacks that are characteristic of Columbia Gorge hikes. There is a cool bridge that crosses over Wahkeena Falls and a nice look out point of the gorge before we started our hike along Wahkeena Spring.

view of the gorge!

The trail continued to climb, not nearly as steep as it did right in the beginning though and we also had the sounds and views of the spring to keep our mind off of the work we were putting in!

We took a short side trip to view where the spring begins to flow above ground which was pretty cool! The spring starts up on Mt. Hood but flows underground, so when looking at the river the trail walks by and on one side there's a creek and on the other, just woods! The hike then continued through the forest, and by this point you should all know how much kyle loves his tall trees!

The hike eventually started to slowly go back downhill, so we knew we needed to stop for a break soon. We rounded a bend in the trail and had a beautiful view of Mulnomah Creek. There was also a log that happened to be on the side of the trail, so we decided to stop for our break!

view of Multnomah Creek

Beers for our break!

So Multnomah Falls is a very famous waterfall that comes from Multnomah Creek. But the thing was that there were a ton of great waterfalls along the creek. So I took a few pictures, but I don't know any of the names! The creek was really pretty, the only thing dampening the hike was that it started to rain!

Waterfalls I love them!

Simone and Kyle on the trail along the creek

Kyle and I decided next time we hike this we
will cross the creek on this log and jump in!

Bridge!

So we eventually got to the part of the hike where it becomes paved and is very easily accessible by everyone. So the traffic on the trail picked up, but we still made our way down to the viewing platform to look out over Multnomah Falls. We then made our way down the many switchbacks until we got a great view of the falls! We finished up the hike and needed one last group picture! And the author of the book is right, this is a great hike for friends who are visiting!