Day 9, Mount Hood, Columbia Gorge, Ape Cave

The drive to Mount Hood was relatively short, lasting only about half an hour. When we arrived at the Timberline Lodge, we asked the employee at the Information Counter about the chair lifts visitors could take to the top of the mountain. To our disappointment though, the lady at the counter told us that unless you were a skier, the chair lifts would only take you halfway up the mountain and you wouldn’t be able to hike much. In the end we decided not to take the chair lifts up, seeing as it wouldn’t be worth our money or our time. We did watch some snowboarders and skiers come down the slopes and zoom right past our eyes. It was cool to see people who really knew how to ride the slopes twist and turn as they flew by our position.

Our next stop was at Columbia Gorge. Before we reached the falls we stopped by an overlook, Vista House, overlooking the foggy Columbia River below. We walked around inside for a little bit before heading off to see the falls. We’d been to Columbia Gorge eight years ago, but seeing as Jessie and I didn’t remember too much of that vacation it was nice to come back and see these magnificent falls again. Some of falls had trails down or walkway out to where you could stand by the water, but most of the time we admired the falls from the viewpoint of a bridge. All the falls were extremely tall, but they weren’t massive like the ones we’d seen in Yosemite and Rogue River Gorge. These falls were mistier and fell gracefully down to the small ponds below. Jessie even played in the water at Wahkeena Falls even though it was really cold and she spent most of her time tiptoeing through the water from rock to rock. The trails to the falls weren’t long either – the longest one was a quarter of a mile round trip, so it was nice to get a break from hiking miles on end.

Since we didn’t have enough time to visit Mount Rainier NP, we headed over to Ape Cave, which was a part of the Mount St. Helens monument. The rangers at the Visitor Center told us that the cave, which was actually a lava tube, was ¾ of a mile long and was pitch black the entire way. They told us that we would need our own light sources, but the only flashlights we had in buried in our rental car were two crayon-sized lights. But as long as they produced a beam of light, it was good enough for us. With flashlights turned on, camera at hand, and jackets wrapped around us for warmth, we began our decent into Ape Cave. We moved about one mile an hour, and envied the groups with headlights and huge lamps that passed us along the way, but we still had a blast navigating our way through the darkness. At the end of the lava tube, the cave began to narrow, and since we didn’t feel like crawling through mud another couple hundred yards, we decided that would be the end of our journey. We took a couple pictures here, and the flash of the camera in the pitch-blackness was enough to blind us. Still, it was funny to see the reaction of those in the picture whenever the flash went off. Jessie and I also took a couple crazy pictures too, where Jessie would pose as a caver in distress and I’d be the crazed Yeti ready to attack from behind. The walk back through the cave went quicker now that we knew the terrain better, and before we knew it we were back in daylight and surrounded by the fresh, warm air. With the sun beginning to set, we headed off to our motel to stock up on snacks and rest for the hike up Mount St. Helens the following day.