Cape Horn Trail

The Columbia Gorge is an important place to me.

Let me give you some context of what it means to me.

My now husband, Tyson, and I were long distance for a year a half. Back in 2011, I was working in Walla Walla, WA and he was in Portland, OR. I commuted several times a month through this gorge during late hours and in heavy rain. We hiked in the gorge. We camped in the gorge. We fell in love in the gorge. We contemplated the difficulty of our distance and took a break from seeing each other, and decided to reconvene and discuss if we should keep working at this. . . in the gorge. Obviously, the gorge convinced us to keep on, because a few months after that, I moved to Portland. And after that, we got engaged . . . in the gorge.

We're married now and live in Portland, OR now (and I've never been happier) and still visit the gorge as often as we can. Here's some pictures of a hike we did yesterday in the gorge, called the Cape Horn Trail. It's a 7.5 mile trail loop and even in January, I couldn't resist getting as close as I could to the waterfall.

Waldo Lake, Oregon

Christmas 2013, my father got us a inflatable kayak. January in Portland doesn't exactly excite one to get in the water, and the summer following, Tyson and I got married, and found that planning a wedding, accommodating family, and getting off work for our honeymoon to Costa Rica and Aruba didn't give us much time for other trips. 

After my dad dropped several comments, like "You haven't used it yet, huh? [sigh] I really thought you guys were going to like it." We decided it was time to make a weekend trip to Waldo Lake in central Oregon in the fall. 

We'd done a bit of research and nothing seemed better than taking it out to Waldo Lake, an ultraoligotrophic lake (having extremely clear water with very little organic material). Apparently, Waldo Lake contains some mineral in the water that prevents it from growing any vegetation, which means no algae, so you can see clear to the bottom everywhere, even at 150 ft deep. Also, all gasoline motors are prohibited, keeping this Lake free from pollution.

By late fall, only one of the campgrounds was still open to the public, so we strapped our food, tent and gear to front, stuffed our sleeping bags in-between the seats and paddled out to a sandy bank where we set up camp. We built a fire, burned a hole in the bottom of one of our sleeping bags trying to dry it on the fire, roasted s'mores, made soup, and slept on the sandy bank under the stars. 

It was magical. We highly recommend this spot to anyone.

Clear water on Waldo Lake 

(1) Setting up camp on the bank  (2) Our campfire on the shore

Waking up in the morning / our view from the shore