The journey to Crooked River Gorge

 Here, in Portland, my GPS says my parking lot behind the building is at 104 feet in elevation; snow is pretty rare down here.

Mt. Hood, on the other hand, is Oregon’s highest peak, at over 11,000 feet in altitude, and wears a snow cap nearly year round. US 26 runs over Mt. Hood at abour 3,500 feet; I don’t know if there has ever been a year that it didn’t snow on the passes.

It was a little wet up there Sunday, when I passed over, on my way to central Oregon.

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Misty mountains surrounded me:

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The Cascade Range, stretching from Canada to California, acts as a "rain shodow" for lands to the east of the range; it’s drier east of the mountains than it is on the west side of them.

I stopped at the rest area in Warm Springs, on the Deschutes River:

There are parts of Oregon that remind me stongly of the American Southwest.

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Standing here, in other days, I would have been run over; this is the former roadbed of US 97, running north and south through Oregon.

"Former" roadbed because this single lane bridge, which carried motor traffic for over 70 years, was replaced in 2000 by a wider bridge, better able to handle the road’s traffic.

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When it was built at the end of the 20th century, this was the highest single-arch bridge in the United States:

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The "old" bridge remains open to walkers and bike riders.

With the appropriate warnings…

cont’d

 

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