Nearby — Bridal Veil Falls (Oregon): The Bridal Veil Falls is a waterfall located on Bridal Veil Creek along the Columbia River Gorge in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States. The waterfall is accessible from the historic Columbia River Highway and Interstate 84. Spanning two tiers on basalt cliffs, it is the only waterfall which occurs below the historic Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway. The Bridal Veil Falls Bridge, built in 1914, crosses over the falls, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Stop here a second and look out over the river, because long before there was a road to drive or a trail to walk, that water right there was
the highway. For more than ten thousand years, the people of this gorge — the Chinook and their neighbors — moved through this country two
ways: by paddle and by path. Canoes carried them and their catch up and down the Columbia, and foot-trails carried them around the parts no
canoe could run. And there were such parts. A few miles east of here the river used to crash through a wild stretch of whitewater called the
Cascades — gone quiet now under the dam, but in those days a roaring barrier that every traveler had to portage around, hauling canoe and
cargo overland. That made this gorge a great crossroads. People came from hundreds of miles to fish the salmon runs and to trade — dried fish,
obsidian, shells carried up from the coast, baskets, stories. The ground under these paths remembers all of it. You're not the first to find
your way through here by paddle and by path. You're just the latest.
Photo: DimiTalen · CC0
