Multnomah Falls...

The kiddo and I have done this hike together once before.  It was a perfect morning, only a couple of stops (due to me, not her) on the way up....Love living in the PNW!!!

HOT and windy day in Portland....

After checking with Dave that I wasn't messing up plans for their day...I asked the kiddos if we could drive to Vista House (about 3 miles from camp) and Multnomah Falls, just to check things out.  I should have KNOWN it was gonna be super windy in the Gorge since we hit our hottest day of the year today ~97 degrees, due to the STRONG east winds.  

When we got out of the car at Vista House, the three kiddos nearly blew away.  I had them link arms and we made our way to the over look to check things out...they could have cared less...it was TOO windy and THAT was way more fun than the views!!!

After not blowing away...we headed to Mulnomah Falls.  The bridge had been closed down due to some serious rock damage in January and reopened in May.  It's only .2 miles to the bridge, so we went up, took some photos, then headed back down.

After lunch and dropping Marilyn off at her home, M, C and I headed to the pool.  They played for a few hours, then Rachel & Maddy stopped by for a few more...97 degrees = perfect pool day!

We met Victor at FG Schmizza for dinner and everybody headed home.

Wee Bee crashed and burned in the craft room.

Great day was had by all!

Beacon Rock...

Today was nice and sunny on the west side of town, but not so much on the east side of town. I decided to keep driving and figured it was better to be over cast and not raining than HOT or raining in the Gorge. I had been wanting to hike to the top of Beacon Rock since my Relay friend Jim had gone a few weeks back. He said it was a great little hike and Charlie would love it...he was CORRECT! It's a total of 1.8 miles round trip with only 600 feet elevation. Took us about 25 minutes to walk to the top...me stopping to take lots of cellphone photos...Charlie would have gone all the way to the top had I let her.

 I LOVED this hike. The view is spectacular the entire way up. If you are afraid of heights, might be a little too much for you. We will be going back for sure, with Victor next time!

There is no better place to live in the world on a day like today!

Charlie and I on the way down.

History marker at the beginning of the trail head.

Resting before we start.

Here we go...

Hmm....

What's the gate for mom?  To LOCK you in!

You can see it was slightly overcast when we started...

It looks like they used old fences to keep people from going over the edge...

A few of the switch backs.

You get the idea...

Seriously perfect views...

Sun is over taking the clouds...

Charlie went first the entire way up.

Looking east up the Gorge.

Final steps to the top.

There is literally no room at the top....we waited our turn to take a photo, then started back down.

Yes, it really is that cool coming down...

My mom would have been having a heart attack if she saw Charlie that close to the edge.

Bonneville Dam on the way east up the river.

Crossing Bridge of the Gods to get back to Oregon.

Multnomah/Wahkeena Falls trail loop...

The kiddo and I watched "UP" last night and decided that Paradise Falls was a little too far away. So we headed out a little after 9am to go walk to the top of Multnomah Falls. Somewhere along the hike up and talking to a few hikers, we decided to do the loop around to Wahkeena Falls and back to the lodge. We were gone for over 4 hours, had a picnic lunch at the top of the falls by the river and had a BLAST! The kiddo never broke a sweat and didn't whine once either. I see many, MANY hikes in our future this summer! Love the PNW!!!

Here we go...

Top of the falls over look.

Water behind her is the FALLS...

I was a little worried my cellphone was gonna slip out of my hands.

Our car is WAY down there...

Seriously so proud of the both of us!

She kept wanting to go up on those roots...I wouldn't let her...Others had gone up, no way!

1 1/4 mile marker.

Rock where we had our picnic lunch!

Such a cool old bridge!

And we decided to keep going and going...

Water everywhere!

Cool rock over hang.

Awesome stump!

We had a couple of fallen trees to traverse!

Columbia River.

Top of the trail head...we ended up going down to Fairy Falls a different route than some others we kept running into.

Fairy Falls was her favorite.

Cool little bridge to walk over.

More bridges.

This tree reminded me of something out of King Kong.

So beautiful, these cellphone photos don't due the green justice!

Back to the Columbia!

Scenic overlook.

And the switch backs down, down, down, just kept going...

Yeah Mommy, we made it to Wahkeena Falls

Walk back to Multnomah Falls Lodge.