Abundant salmon and camas roots made living comparatively easy. It created a natural path for commerce and trade. Indians lived in the Gorge for thousands of years. The Multnomah Falls Lodge was spared after a concerted effort by firefighters, but the natural scenery has been altered irrevocably for the period of our lifetimes. While the burn consumed much dead fuel, whole slopes of living forest also perished in the conflagration, which adopted typical mosaic-like behavior. Most of the Oregon trails between Shepperds Dell Falls and Mount Defiance were affected by the burn, with the fire riding up ridges and valleys as far as the Bull Run Watershed. On Labor Day, 2017, a group of teenagers playing with fireworks started the 48,000-acre Eagle Creek Fire that once again transformed the scenery in the Gorge, especially on the Oregon side (A small area around Archer Mountain on the Washington side was also consumed by a spot fire). #COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE SERIES#In a few months, the river managed to erode away the southern part of the landslide creating a series of rapids, later called the Cascades. The Columbia River was backed up as far as the current John Day Dam. Indian legends survive of crossing the river on dry land. A series of four landslides tumbled from Table Mountain, blocking the Columbia River in a pile of rubble 200 feet high. The most recent geological cataclysm to happen in the Gorge was a large landslide about 500 years ago. Recent research has revealed that a number of floods repeated this pattern over several centuries. Much of the rock washed from the Gorge and points east now forms the flat bottom of the Willamette Valley. Today's waterfalls are formed where creeks formerly flowing down rock slopes now tumble from upper hanging creek valleys directly into the bottom of the Gorge. The floods scoured the Gorge clean, washing away all of the loose rock and exposed all of the basalt cliffs we see today. When the floodwaters reached the Gorge, they rushed through at depths of several hundred feet. The water spread out in eastern Washington creating the coulees and Dry Falls. In any event, once the water began flowing around the dam, it rapidly melted and broke the ice dam and the entire volume of "Lake Missoula" rushed down the valley in one of the largest floods in earth's history. Either the water reached a level over the top of the dam, temporary warming melted part of the dam or the water pressure actually floated the dam. Years later, one of three things happened. Water backed up behind the dam for a long time, possibly hundreds of years. Metlako Falls is one of 108 named falls in the Columbia River Gorge (Jeff Statt)ĭuring the last age ice (16,000-14,000 years ago) a large arm of the northern ice sheet blocked the valley of the Clark Fork River in Montana. This valley had sloping walls with much less visible rock than we see today. As the mountains rose, the river kept pace and a huge valley was formed through the mountains. During the Pleistocene (2,000,000 to 700,000 years ago), the Cascade Mountains were uplifted in the area. Later, in the Miocene period (17-12 million years ago) floods of basalt covered large parts of Washington and Oregon, including 21 lava flows in the Gorge area, many of which are visible today in the walls of the Gorge. Millions of years later, the Eagle Creek Formation was formed when mudflows pouring off volcanoes covered the land with hundreds of feet of loose rock and ash. The natural history of the Gorge starts over 20 million years ago, when thousands of volcanic eruptions created a huge lava formation now called the Ohanapecosh Formation. With over 100 waterfalls and countless river viewpoints, the Gorge provides beautiful hiking at every turn. The Columbia River Gorge is one of the key geographical features in the Pacific Northwest. The magnificent Columbia River Gorge (Jeff Statt)
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