Hiking in the Gorge

Saturday afternoon held another first for baby Sofia. Jac, Ethan, and the kids were headed out to the Columbia Gorge to hike to a waterfall and invited us to join. We loaded a sleepy baby into the car (perfect timing for her to sleep through the whole thing!) and headed east.

The photos don't even BEGIN to do the gorge justice! The drive is so stunning and beautiful! One of my favorite parts of going to the waterfalls.

Zia on her mama's back. That blue winter suit is just too stinking adorable!

First hike as a family of 3. Sofia fussed a bit (just enough to make her mama stress about wearing her and almost crawl back in the car to head home...) but she soon feel fast asleep once we got walking. She slept the whole hike and almost the whole way back home!

I wasn't surprised to see so much more water, but I was impressed with the power of it! Way cool to see the difference in the waterfalls between the rainy and sunny seasons.

It even snowed on us through the second half of the hike! Tiny little flakes that stuck to our hair but melted away on the ground.

Horsetail Falls in the Columbia Gorge

As I mentioned last week, I spent a day with P, Z and Jac out at Horsetail falls hiking and exploring. I love, love, love being so close to them that we can go on day trips, and I absolutely cannot wait for our little one to be able to join us (have I mentioned this yet?? ;)

After a picnic, we hiked .4 miles up to Horsetail falls - a beautiful waterfall you can walk behind (that I'd love to actually swim in someday on a really HOT day). P, Jac and Z continued on another hike, which was on an unmaintained steep trail that I started to attempt and then decided sitting in the trees listening to the water fall wasn't such a bad place for me to be after all! Someday I will do that hike, but I'm realizing that I've definitely got a limit and it's getting a little bit smaller the more pregnant I get!

Here are some photos from my camera of our day:

This photo doesn't do it justice, but the lighting coming through the trees as we came around the bend to find Horsetail Falls was quite amazing.

Crater Lake

This photo was taken by my father-in-law, and I absolutely LOVE it!! 

Seth's father came to Portland for a visit this week, which gave us the perfect excuse to head out and explore a bit of Oregon. This last weekend's destination was Crater Lake Saturday and a last minute decision to hit the coast on Sunday.

Crater Lake was absolutely breath-taking and deserves days and days of exploring... the various hiking trails and a boat tour out to Wizard Island are definitely a must for future trips!! We stopped at a few lookouts and hiked the one trail down to the water's edge. I was a little nervous about this hike because it was labelled as "strenuous" and beings that it went down into the crater to the water in a mile, I imagined it might be a little too much for me. So the original plan was for me to sit at the top of the trail and read while the boys went down... but as we came to the head of the trail, I thought maybe I'd go down as far as I thought I could go and then I'd head back up or find a place to read along the trail... Seth took my bag for me (my bag of books!!) so that I wouldn't have to carry it, and we headed down. It was switchbacks all the way and didn't seem like it would be too extremely difficult for me to manage so I went all the way down (of course, feeling terrible that Seth was carrying my bag of books for no reason down the trail... He assured me there was nothing to worry about! What a sweet guy I married!)

Here are some photos from our visit to Crater Lake:

See Seth with my bag. He didn't complain a moment! Yet, I felt really bad that I had loaded it up intending to stay at the top... 

The water was a magnificent color blue and clear, clear, clear!

Contemplating jumping the cliff...

Seth ended up jumping a few times. It's crazy to think that the depth of the water under that cliff is about 200 feet (according to word of mouth).

When we first arrived, there was a bit of cloud cover hanging over the water. We thought they'd go away, but as it turns out it just got heavier. By the end of the day, we could hardly see across the lake because the clouds were so thick. Turns out, they weren't clouds, it was smoke for forest fires!

Portland: Hiking Waterfalls and Mt. Hood

Our first day in Portland, and I have to say I was quickly a fan. The neighborhood where Seth's brother & family live has a bit of a small town feel to it - houses, yards, porches - yet, they are within a few blocks of some really great blocks with many thrift stores (!!!!), coffee shops, restaurants, bars, their grocery store, etc... Yet, for feeling like a small town, it also feels cool like Brooklyn. Everyone does their own thing, the light poles are covered with stapled signs, and there's graffiti!!

We spent our first day hiking, hiking, and hiking. 

 We woke up early our first morning in Portland (as in normal NY morning time). After getting coffee at a neighborhood coffee shop, we jumped in the car and headed to Multnomah Falls for a morning hike with Ethan.

 The view was breath-takingly (made that up??) beautiful! Up, up, up we hiked.

All the way to the top, where we could look down as the water flowed over the edge and plummeted down.

 Flowers bloomed everywhere along the trail.

 After our hike, we headed back and grabbed brunch at a local restaurant. As we finished up, P called to inform us he was waiting for us and we needed to get home to see him!

We spent the rest of the day hiking near/on Mt. Hood. 

The smell of nature was so intense and wonderful! I had been craving it for way too long.

You can see the snow-capped Mt. Hood in the background. 

After hiking up to Mirror Lake, we headed toward the top of Mt. Hood. The snow had melted down quite a bit since they had been up there last month, but there was still some for us to hike on. There was also enough for skiers and snowboarders to continue to enjoy.

Seth and P enjoyed rolling rocks down the hill for quite a while. I guess the boyhood novelty doesn't wear off after all these years ;) 

What a beautiful day in such a beautiful place!