Your eyes aren't fooling you--- the grassy hills and sunny oak flats you're seeing are only a half hour drive east of rain-soaked fir forests near Multnomah Falls (LINK)... We're at Tom McCall Nature Area, famed for its spring wildflowers and year-around vistas of the Eastern Gorge. Here the rainfall is a meager 15-20 inches per year, while in the heart of the Western Gorge near Eagle Creek and Multnomah Falls, 60-80 inches per year is normal! And go another 20 miles eastward to Celilo Indian Village, and rainfall is only 10 inches per year. (see picture near page bottom)

In the Eastern Gorge, it is common for summer days to reach over 90 degrees, and 100 is not uncommon.....Portland's cool "early morning clouds" rarely make it up the Gorge past the small town of Hood River, leaving this area with frequent cloudless days....The yellow flowers are Balsamroot, which has a root favored by Native Americans for culinary purposes; some purple lupine is also visible....Just a few miles east of this image, the mighty Columbia River veers south almost 90 degrees at Rowena Gap, thence exiting at the town of The Dalles, marking the eastern terminus of the Gorge. Near Rowena, a few years ago, the squished remains of a wolverine were found on I-84 freeway, a very rare animal in a very unlikely place (click for more)

For another amazing Oregon contrast, you could drive to Mt. Hood from this spot, and within an hour you would be standing at Timberline Lodge, where the yearly snowfall of about 600 inches doesn't melt away until June! (Skiers count on the fact that the only reliable summertime skiing outside of Alaska thrives on Mt. Hood, on the 8,000 foot Palmer Ice Field..... Many high-powered downhill ski racing and training camps know this).

Across the Columbia River from the McCall Nature Area pictured here is the Klickitat River. This unpeopled beauty flows down from the eastern glaciers of mighty Mt. Adams. Recently, a "Rails to Trails" project of major proportions opened this area up to wonderful hiking opportunities that had not previously existed. Now there is the unparalled possibility of hiking some 30 miles. This trail will take you from the Columbia River lowlands up the canyon of the Klickitat, thence into a side canyon called Swale Canyon, and eventually you will come out at about 1,600 feet elevation. All around you will be the wide sweeping grasslands of the Goldendale Valley, and you will be near the County seat of Klickitat County (Goldendale, with its very fine public astronomical observatory, Goldendale Observatory State Park. An old friend of mine, Steve Stout, is in charge and can thrill you with the lore of astronomy). Please visit this website to learn more about this new Trail: Klickitat Trail Conservancy.

In the Picture below, you've now travelled another 20 miles east, to where the dryness has greatly intensified. We are still less than an hour's drive on I-84 from the rain-forested-ness of Eagle Creek in the central part of the Gorge! In the Far Eastern Gorge, it's a land of wide open space and big sky, and I love that about it. In the picture below, you're standing on the Washington side, looking down across the mighty Columbia River. On the far side, you can glimpse the confluence of the Deschutes River with the Columbia. In a way, that's a sad place, being the place where the beautiful Deschutes River ends its existence.... But there is also a small State Park at that confluence, and it's been a place through the years where I've really enjoyed camping and boating with my sons.