Wahclella Falls

Tuesday the sun was shinning so we decided to take advantage of the dry weather and go on a hike.
One of the advantages of living so close to the Columbia River Gorge is that there are tons of waterfalls and just as many hikes. The hike was beautiful,
and because it has rained for 21 days straight here, there were a lot of little water falls along the way.

This fall was at the first bridge almost right at the beginning of the trail. It was so close to the bridge you could almost touch it. I expected the trail to be pretty muddy, so I was surprised that it really wasn't.
Valerie loved riding it the back pack. She just didn't like it when I stopped walking. Good thing the hike was only a mile long, so we really didn't need to stop and rest.

When we got to the falls the kids wanted to throw rocks in the water, so when I asked them to come take a picture, they stood in the group, but my boys were not happy about it.

Emily was a good sport about it though. The trail does a loop past the falls, so the trail going back is different. The kids were excited when they found a cave, and wanted to go explore it. When we mentioned wild animals they changed their minds.

We did encounter a few Banana Slugs on the trail. I asked Joe to pick one up so we could get a picture of him holding it. He did not want to touch it so I took a picture of his finger next to it so we could see how big it was.

After the hike we took our picnic lunch over to the Fish hatchery at Bonneville dam. After lunch we went over to see the fish. Grandma bought the kids some fish food to feed the trout. The Trout were pretty viscous when they threw the food in. Emily was worried that the only way they got fed is if someone bought the food out of the little machine. I assured her that the fish got plenty of food. She decided that at the end of the day whatever food was left in the machines was dumped into the water for the fish to eat. I guess she can think that if it will help her sleep at night.


Josh is still crazy about all of the bridges on the river, so for an thrilling adventure, Grandma took us for a drive over The Bridge Of The Gods. It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful day.