It must be the heat because I keep thinking about waterfalls. I know there are waterfalls all around the country, but when I think of them Oregon usually comes to mind. When I lived in Portland I often made trips out to the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area to hike and see the waterfalls. Sometimes I skipped the hike and just went to see the falls. The most well-known ones, like Multnomah (620 ft), Horsetail (224 ft), Wakeenah (242 ft), and Latourell (249 ft), can be seen easily from the Historic Columbia River Scenic Highway. There’s even a turnout from I-84 for Multnomah Falls so millions of people see these natural wonders every year.
Assuming the tourist brochures can be believed, there are 77 waterfalls in a 15-mile stretch just on the Oregon side of the gorge. Fortunately, most of them require some hiking, which does a great job of cutting down on the number of tourists interfering with the view. Because of the topography, many of the streams form both an upper and a lower falls. Many of the lower falls can be seen from the road, but most of the upper falls require a hike. So, this is an area that offers a little something for everyone.
The three falls below are Multnomah (where both the upper and lower can be seen from the road), Horsetail, and Latourell. Note the beautiful columnar basalt behind Latourell Falls.
More falls from other places around the US are shown below.
(Click on any photo to enlarge, then use arrows to scroll through the images.)
