Hiking the Great Northwest: Triple Falls to Horsetail Falls and the Oneonta Gorge

This weekend was a little girls weekend up to the Portland area, firstly to visit with one of my best girlfriends, Katie, who was visiting this week from Boston, and secondly, since I was already up in the area, to hike in the Columbia River Gorge!

So Saturday afternoon we took the beautiful scenic Historic Columbia River Highway Scenic Byway. This highway is quite narrow but passes by the Vista House at Crown Point and several waterfalls, including Multnomah Falls. There was a bit of congestion at Multnomah Falls since it is the biggest tourist spot. It was also a very popular day to be out in the gorge.

We finally got to the trail head for Triple Falls, and luckily got a great parking spot! We hiked up to Triple Falls, which is a good steep 610 foot gain in about a mile and a half. Just past the turn off to Oneonta Falls, keep going up to Triple Falls. This last spring the land suffered from erosion. The trail is open now, but not as secure as in the past. There was a challenging, loose dirt, narrow stair set with a loose dirt, narrow path edging along quite a drop off. Be careful here, especially on your way back down.

After a good climb (your butt and calves will thank you later!) you'll come to Triple Falls, an incredible waterfall splitting off into three, hence Triple. Here there is a great spot for a little rest, water, and a mini photoshoot. You could keep going up to Larch Mountain, however that's another 6 miles. Instead we turned back down to the trail split and veered off to Oneonta Falls. All of these trails feature my favorite type of hill climbing (that was sarcastic): Switchbacks. And again, your butt and calves will thank you for it later. We descended down into the Oneonta Gorge and crossed the bridge that overlooks the Middle Oneonta Falls. Climb back up out of the Oneonta Gorge and the trail winds another mile to Ponytail Falls. If you remember back in April, my mom and I hiked up to Ponytail Falls, well now we are connected back with that same area. Winding around behind Ponytail falls and descending back down to the road, we arrived at Horsetail Falls. This would be the end of our hike... mostly.

Instead of walking back up the road to the car, we stopped halfway through at the entrance to the Oneonta Gorge. Here, the hike is not on a trail, but the trail is the creek! So very skillfully, I changed my pants into board shorts and changed from my tennis shoes to creek walking shoes. We climbed down into the water and creek walked up the beautiful Oneonta Gorge. This was heavily crowded. We attempted to climb over the dam to get to the other side of the creek, but there were too many people to worry about it. I would love to go back and just do the gorge creek walk with a good group of us, and perhaps go earlier in the day.

Date of hike: August 16th, 2014
Distance: 4 miles round trip

Elevation gain: 610 feet
Hiking Time: 3 hours

Difficulty: Moderate (easy for me, but I know my mother would never do this one!)
Miles thus far: 142/200 miles this year

Beginning of the Oneonta Trail

Beautiful view looking west down the Columbia River

Trail split off going to Triple Falls, back down to the road, or Oneonta Falls

Triple Falls

Triple Falls with Caitlin

Triple Falls

Caitlin at Oneonta Falls

Oneonta Falls

Caitlin and I at Horsetail Falls... you could say there's three of us, if you include Nanny! (remember when my mom and I threw her ashes into the falls?)