Friday five.

Of the 82 photos I took today, five of my favorites, in no particular order... First, Lancaster Falls:

I like how you can see the individual blades of grass and clear outlines of the rocks, yet the water is moving too fast for any kind of focus. Lancaster Falls is one of the least-visited waterfalls according to the hiking book guy. To get to it, you have to:

1. guess that by exit 54 he actually means exit 55
2. guess that the gravel path from the parking lot that follows alongside the exit ramp is actually the trail
   
3. (the full trail name of which is called Mount Defiance, by the way, so I guess first of all you need to be willing to walk up a trail called Mount Defiance)
4. walk right next to the freeway for about half a mile
5. wander aimlessly down a fairly boring path for another half mile until you reach Hole in the Wall Falls
6. go up a steep hill
   
7. cross the creek and get soaked by a cascade of water
   
8. look up to realize that the cascade of water is actually Lancaster Falls and that Lancaster Falls is actually an impressive waterfall that goes far up the mountain
   

Gosh, I can't imagine why it's the least-visited... I'm so glad I crossed and looked up though, because this was the very last waterfall I was to see, and I was getting tired and cranky, and if it had just been a cascade of water I would've had to come home and write a nasty letter to the hiking book guy. I tried to get the full effect in the picture but I couldn't do so without falling off the cliff. Trust me though, it's impressive. (Bonus: I got the schplurgh from last week's hike off my boots in the creek!)

This is Rodney Falls at Beacon Rock, Washington:

Well, part of it anyway - again, I couldn't get the whole shot in the lens. At the top of Rodney Falls is Pool of the Winds, where the waterfall has carved out quite a chasm in the rocks. More photos in the link below. But I stood in this one spot for about 20 minutes just watching all the various nuances of waterfalls coming down. Rodney Falls goes in my "top five" list of waterfalls, for sure.

Next up... Look:


Green! And blue! And clouds! I love clouds.

Next up is Ecola Falls. To get to Ecola Falls, you hike to the top of Multnomah Falls...

[Digression: If any of you come to visit, I will surely drive you to Multnomah Falls. I will wait in the car while you go up to take a picture. I'll even wait while you hike up to the lookout point if you so choose. But I am never, ever setting foot amidst all those tourists again. Unless you decide to trek out to Ecola Falls, at which point I hereby retract this statement. End of digression.]

... behind nineteen thousand tourists who have no trail etiquette, and a million kids who don't know that throwing trash into the bushes is not a good thing to do, and fifteen zillion dogs, and take a left when everyone else takes a right. First you pass a cute little punchbowl waterfall (Wisendanger Falls - there's nothing actually dangerous about it but it might make you smarter if you sit and watch it long enough). Then you round a corner and if you're lucky, the sun will be out and the rays will catch the mist and you'll get a shot sorta like this:


And finally, documented evidence that the sky is not always the same color as the Columbia River:


... just most of the time.

And so eleven waterfalls, eight hours, five hikes, two states, one hefty contribution to the hip replacement fund and a partridge in a pear tree later, I have officially seen every waterfall the guy mentions in my Columbia River Gorge hiking book. All that's left to do is un-earmark those hikes, earmark some waterfall-less trail hikes for the fall, and crack open that Portland Hills book to map out my summer exploration...

But first, a nap.

More photos here. Don't worry, I only uploaded 45 of the 82. (People! Eleven waterfalls, OK?!)