Oneonta Gorge and Portland

After Bend, it was a long drive back to Portland, the latter half of which was spent tracking the early EU Referendum results, back when we were still blithely confident that the UK would probably vote to remain. Suffice to say, the evening in our hotel room grew steadily gloomier. Don't blame us--we voted by proxy, apparently while exploring the lava tubes yesterday.

Once we had slept on the fact that our country has decided to jump off a cliff to see what would happen, it seemed a good idea to go and lose ourselves in the Oregon wilds. After Thor's Well, there was one other place on Buzzfeed's most surreal places list that we were determined to tick off this holiday: Oneonta Gorge.

The attraction of this short, half-mile hike is that the creek is the trail. We came prepped in our swimsuits and water shoes--and warm layers and towels, since the day was colder than we had hoped.

Steps lead down, but from there you're on your own.

Our research had told us that we would need to get over a log jam near the start. This proved tricky, especially with the kids but we managed it. I was wearing toe shoes with thin flexible soles, which were great for this, and I comfortably balanced along all kinds of logs while steadying my daughter. However, in the river, I could feel every stone shifting beneath my feet and it was incredibly difficult to manage any speed but sloth. I saw at least one person doing it barefoot, so it's feasible, but I wouldn't recommend it!

The problem was that the water was ridiculously cold and a little higher than we had hoped, with a current forceful enough to make the kids struggle on the shifting stones. Even carrying them through the first 'deep' bit (up to our thighs), they started crying, so we stopped on a small island midway down the gorge.

Even going that far, it was an eerie place with mossy, ferny cliffs towering on either side and a constant 'rain' dripping off them. Birds swooped casually past us and my daughter spotted a small snake curled up in a crevice by our island.

A common garter snake but very cute.

My husband went on ahead to a smaller log jam, and from there he could see the falls. However, the water got steadily deeper from his logs on. We watched two girls (who had done this before) pass us and strip off most of their clothes to leave on the rocks before tackling the last stretch. They made it and took selfies, but we decided we would have to call it where we were.

As close as we got!

The kids had perked up tremendously once we put warm clothes on their top halves and gave them some sweets. They were quite happy on their island, snacking and cooing over the snake, so I also went out to the logs, to see the falls for myself. Then we turned back, carrying the kids again--I was so ridiculously slow with my shoes, that my husband deposited our son on an island near the log jam and came back to take our daughter from me.

We were all cold, but our daughter was really struggling. By the time we got back to the log jam, she was shivering and her lips were turning blue. This gave her a lot of trouble crossing the logs, though mostly we managed pretty well, with me sitting astride logs and swooping her over to the next steady spot, my husband assisting at the trickier, more perilous moments.

Giant Log Jam of Doom. For scale reference, all four of us could stand without touching each other on the foremost rock at the bottom of the picture.

Then my husband stepped on a log which broke. With a "Holy shit!" he disappeared into the depths of the logjam. I freaked out, tried to rush to his aid shrieking his name and slipped on a log myself. Fortunately, I was holding a spur of wood, so instead of plunging  to my doom, I swung around until my knee whacked into something, and I came to rest sitting on one log and clinging to another while my husband yelled at me not to come after him.

When he had fallen, he had managed to hold on to a log with his left hand, so although he hit the water, he did not discover how deep it was. He got himself out, with help from a floating log as a foothold, and although his entire lower half was soaked, he managed to keep our bag of possessions (complete with phone and car keys) dry.

Through all of this, our daughter sat patiently on her log and waited for us to stop trying to kill ourselves and get back to helping her across.

I don't remember getting these bruises on the back of my leg, but I'd guess that happened when I slipped.

So I suppose our verdict on the Oneonta Gorge is that it's a little ambitious for children as young as five. That said, it was stunning and a really cool little hike, to the point that my husband is suggesting we go back on Monday before our flight home. Today was a cold day after a rainy day. Between now and Monday, Portland weather should be hot and dry. Perhaps the creek will be lower or at least the cold water will be more tolerable.

I'm not sure we will be able to talk the kids back into it (even if they were pretty chipper by the end of the walk), but watch this space?

After turning the car's heater on full blast and changing out of our wet things, we drove a short distance back along the pretty Historic Columbia River Highway to the even prettier Multnomah Falls. The car park there was overflowing, and it took us three passes to find a space. (Afterwards, we realised you could also access it from an interstate rest area via a pedestrian underpass.)

Multnomah Falls

The Upper Falls as seen from the bridge.

There's a lodge and assorted snackbars there, so we got the kids a giant cookie because they needed a sugar pep-up, got our dry clothes wet with waterfall spray, and then got ourselves a hot chocolate before returning to the car.

We had no further plans for the day, since we hadn't been sure how much time to allot to Oneonta Gorge, so we lunched at a McDonalds with a play area and did some quick googling which led us to take a ride on Portland's Aerial Tram, which runs between the university campus by the river and the hospitals at the top of the hill. This short trip gave us stunning views of Portland and a pleasant walk around the two tier balcony garden at Oregon Health and Science University.

Looking down Marquam Hill to Downtown Portland and the Willamette River.

The Upper Tram Terminal.

 Afterwards, we took the kids to Washington Park. We did not have anything like the time required to explore it properly, but they played at the playground, while I wandered briefly around the Rose Garden before we headed out for dinner. (At Hopworks Urban Brewery Bikebar. They had a train table for the kids to play at. It was phenomenal. Food and atmosphere was great too.)

The Inkspot, Washington Parks' 'blackest' rose.

Finally a dip in the hotel pool, where the kids tried to see if they could drown me by making me laugh. (They failed.) An earlier night for them, and laundry for me; tomorrow we are Seattle-bound!