Eyes left, and watch for a crack in the world. Just ahead is Oneonta Gorge, and this one breaks every rule the road's taught you so far.
There's no big plunge to point your finger at. Instead you're looking into a slot canyon — a narrow, mossy slit sliced clean through the
basalt, barely wider than a hallway, with walls climbing two hundred feet straight up and nearly leaning together overhead. A quarter mile
back inside there, hidden from the road, Oneonta Creek drops in a waterfall that almost nobody lays eyes on anymore. For years, people would
wade and scramble up the creek to reach it, clambering over a giant jam of fallen logs — and those who made it counted themselves lucky. I was
one of them, once, before the fire. But the gorge is closed now, and you can't make that walk today. When the Eagle Creek Fire swept through
in twenty seventeen, it left these slopes burned and unstable, and dropped so many dead trees into the water that the log jams choking the
canyon turned downright dangerous. So this one's a look, not a stop. Admire it from the road as you pass — that green gap in the cliff, the
cold air pouring out like a door left open on winter — and let Oneonta keep its secret a while longer, until the creek clears and it's safe to
walk again.
