The Path to Elowah Falls

Situated in John B. Yeon State Park towards the eastern end of what we perceived to be the waterfalls area along the historical highway detour of the... more

by Jeff Swan

Title

The Path to Elowah Falls

Artist

Jeff Swan

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

situated in John B. Yeon State Park towards the eastern end of what we perceived to be the "waterfalls area" along the historical highway detour of the Columbia River Gorge. This waterfall reminded me very much of Latourell Falls since they were both tall slender with a basalt cliff supporting them. Perhaps there were slight variations in their shape and dimensions, but I could totally see how I might get the two confused if I was presented a photo of one or the other.

Unlike many of the other major waterfalls in the Gorge, we had to do a little huffing and puffing to get close to this one despite its proximity to the highway. It might have been for this reason that we didn't encounter the crowds that other Columbia River Gorge waterfalls that were closer to the road might have had. I recalled one day that while driving along the I-84, we saw this waterfall from the freeway!

It wasn't too bad of a walk to access Elowah Falls as it was about a mile each way (2 miles round trip). The first half-mile was all climbing as we rose above the level of the noisy I-84. There was a fork in the trail leading to Upper McCord Creek Falls (which we didn't do). Shortly beyond the fork, the trail crested as it turned into Elowah Canyon where it descended another half-mile over a few switchbacks to the base of the falls.

Uploaded

May 15th, 2014