What a beautiful day for a trip...

We took a little side trip with the Kiwis (Jeff and Marla) to Hood River today. Planning on a few caches, we settled on starting with a really infamous one, The Pipeline.

Beginning at the Hood River, we hiked up along the pipeline until we got to the creek, and crossed over on top of the pipeline. That's where we found some "creative expressionism" on the pipe. We headed on up the trail to the second creek crossing. When we arrived, the gate on the other side of the penstock bridge was locked, so we will have to return and do this one another day. That won't be a problem at all because the scenery was beautiful and the hike was nice, so we don't mind going back.

After that, we headed up to a panoramic vista of the valley to do another cache. *HINT* It's not hidden in these trees. However, a beautiful view of the snowy mountains across the gorge was, so I took a picture.

Melissa took a moment to have her picture taken with Kiwi, Jeff and Marla's Newfoundland. She looks so small in this picture, but she is really as tall as your hip when sitting beside you!

Then we went into Hood River and had lunch, and then back on the road to do a few more caches on the way back to Portland. The best one of the day had to be Tomb Raider, by Navdog. From the parking area, near Cascade Locks, we could look up and see the snowline on the sides of the gorge above us. And the view across the river was no less spectacular! We ended up having to climb all over what seemed to be an old rock quarry out on an island in the Columbia River. Melissa found the final resting place for the cache. See the scenery behind her? It's about 100 feet or more straight down. YIKES!

We stopped at some beautiful places along the way. Marla decided that we needed to see all the waterfalls along the way, so we stopped at Horsetail Falls, Multnomah Falls, and the Oneonata Gorge. Multnomah Falls is one of the treasures of Oregon, and rightfully so. It is 626 feet tall, and has it's own wayside and lodge right beside it.

Pool at the bottom of the falls
Me at the falls
Melissa and me at the falls
Small creek that feeds the pool at Multnomah Falls

We also took in the view from the Crown Point Vista House. That was magnificent, and view looking either direction at the gorge was amazing.

Gorge looking east
Gorge looking west

It was a beautiful end to an amazing day of exploration! Thanks for the tour, Kiwis!