Hiking the Great Northwest: Multnomah Falls...Scratch that...Larch Mountain... Scratch that... Oneonta Falls

Back in May, I was up in Portland for a weekend class, which provided a great opportunity to hike in the Columbia River Gorge again! I dropped my mom and step-dad off at the airport for their Hawaii trip (ridiculous right?) and headed out right from there. I brought my mom's 8 month old black lab puppy, Lucy, with me. I had to get that cool hiker image right? Which meant that if I had a dog hiking, I looked super cool and hip. (haha...right.)

My original plan was to hike Multnomah Falls. However, when I got there I quickly found that due to landslides and rain, the trail was closed! So I figured I would go down the road and start at Horsetail Falls again and head up either to Triple Falls, or further to Larch Mountain. So I steeply headed up the trail by Horsetail Falls, looped under Ponytail Falls, and on to the Oneonta Gorge. There were beautiful waterfalls, beautiful views of the Columbia River Gorge, the ground was muddy but wasn't at least it wasn't raining! Just past Oneonta Falls, as I was ascending the trail to Triple Falls, another hiker informed me that the trail ahead was also closed to rain and mudslide mumbo jumbo! It was disappointing, at the same time, I wasn't super bummed because Lucy was not the best hiking partner. She definitely needed a little more training. But as you'll see in the photos, she is so adorable!

Date of hike: May 18th, 2014
Distance: 3 miles