Firstly, I wanted to see the coast. Specifically Cannon Beach. I have fond memories as a child of taking a trip up to the southern coast or Oregon and camping near the beach. Exploring the tide pools there was my favorite part of that trip and is one of my earliest memories. I couldn't wait to get out there again.
Cannon Beach is the closest little beach town to Portland and only about an hour and a half drive away. When our flight got in at 7 am that morning, we rented a car and drove straight to the beach.
It did not disappoint.
We had incredible weather and were able to take a nice nap on the beach as we were exhausted from waking up at 4 am to catch our flight. We walked around Cannon Beach town, had a lovely lunch, decided against swimming in the freezing water, and instead drove back to Portland to check in with our Airbnb place.
Could it be any cuter? This was our adorable little "Cob Cottage" in a great little neighborhood across the river from downtown that had very friendly cats in the yard to keep us company.
My second reason for going to Portland was to see the Columbia River Gorge and all of it's incredible waterfalls. We spent two days (Saturday and Monday morning) hiking to waterfalls and scenic viewpoints. Below are some of my favorites.
Lower Latourell Falls from the hiking trail
Lower Latourell from the trail. You can hike to upper Latourell Falls (maybe about a mile hike?) but it isn't nearly as impressive as lower. The path to get there though is lovely.
Standing near the bottom of Lower Latourell. I fell like this waterfall was kind of overlooked by the rest of the throng of tourists. Not sure why, as it was my second favorite.
Triple Falls - this was definitely the most intensive hike that we did to get to any of the waterfalls. It's still not a difficult hike however if you're used to hiking, especially in Utah. You can follow a path around the side to get to the river directly above the waterfalls where you can see a few people playing in the water. We had a great lunch over there in the shade.
Then there is the big one - Multnomah. This is just the upper portion of the falls when you're standing on the bridge. You cannot tell how big this really is from the photo - it is immense!
Here is the full Multnomah falls. I had to vertical panoramic this picture on my phone to get the whole thing in. That's how big it is. It is also insanely crowded. I would definitely NOT recommend going on a weekend day, especially a holiday weekend like I did, however, if that's your only option, do not miss seeing Multnomah.
This is Fairy Tale Falls. The smallest we saw, but very beautiful. I wished I had brought my big camera for this waterfall so I could have gotten some long exposure shots.
And this is what the path up to Fairy Tale Falls looks like. It seriously felt like another planet to me. So vibrant, so alive, so humid.
This was too good to resist.
The last waterfall on my list was what I was most looking forward too. We saw more than the ones I showed above, but they weren't as impressive - (they're still amazing, I just didn't want this post to be too long). Nothing however compares to the beauty of Oneonta Gorge and waterfall. You absolutely MUST go here if you visit the Columbia River Gorge and you must go early! It gets very crowded very quickly. We went at 7am Monday morning and I ended up wishing we'd even gotten there earlier so we could have appreciated the magic and beauty a little longer without people showing up.
Isn't that beautiful? The green was so overwhelming it was almost painful to look at.
To get there, you have to climb over this,
which is a lot sketchier than it looks in the picture and a lot of people struggled with it.
You walk a little bit, wading through water about mid calf deep until you get to the next challenge. There is a drop in the river that you wade through the gets about chest deep on a tall person. It is very very very cold. If you're an awesome rock climber, you can climb around that section like this.
Brien is a much better rock climber than me and made it along the wall without falling in (unlike me).
But it was so worth it!
We also spent a lot of time in Portland itself getting our weird on, and I must say, I loved the city. There are so many great restaurants, breweries, coffee shops, markets, music, interesting people, and cool sights. My top three things we did in the city, which I unfortunately didn't think to take pictures of were:
1. Powell's City of Books - this bookstore takes up an entire city block with seven levels I think of books. It's not just any old bookstore though - there are books on everything that I could ever imagine. There are also the people that crowd the isles - it's like getting to see a miniature Portland in all of it's unique glory confined to a book store.
2. Breweries - I found out that Portland has the most microbreweries than anywhere else in the country. We were lucky enough to be in town when there was a smaller microbrew festival going on so we were able to sample a bunch of different beers from some of the smaller, lesser known Portland breweries, which happened to be just as delicious as the more well known ones!
3. The neighborhoods - we spend a lot of time walking around the neighborhood we were staying in as well as near and in the downtown area and got to feel a little of the funky vibe Portland has. It's a great time to just walk around and feel like you belong in a new place.
If you have a weekend in Portland, you'll have more than enough to keep you entertained and will probably leave wishing you could spend a few more days there. It's a city right on the brink of nature with a fun local culture and a great food scene - in short, my favorite kind of city!
-Leah
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