Franklin Ridge

Click on the images to get a better view

Last weekend Dave, Balazs, and I went on a hike to justify, calorie wise, the beer drinking afterwards. We did well. Although we are not sure whether we walked 10.35 or 11.6 miles, we are sure we worked hard and earned our dinner and refreshing pints.
We climbed from the Columbia river to Franklin Ridge, almost 3,000 feet, and came back down again along Multnomah Falls. The exact mileage is uncertain due to technology. Gmap-pedometer.com thinks the loop was 10.35 miles long, while Dave's paper map insist that the path segments add up to the larger distance. Unless the person (Dave) doing the adding, had too much beer.

Independent of that technical detail, it was a beautiful day and hike. It was quite warm, but most of the route is under the shadows of trees and along cool mountain streams. Once we got past Triple Falls, we were basically alone. Except for the snake in the top picture. Dave may have accidentally stepped on its tail and felt sorry. But it gave us the opportunity to play guessing games on how poisonous that snake really is, and take pictures of it. He was not in a good mood. Maybe it was the picture taking, a hurting tail, or just annoyance about having to share the wilderness with us. He kept snapping at us. I hope he heals up.

A path interrupted

 In several places we had to make detours around damaged parts of the trail. The biggest gap is in the picture above. A major section had been washed out and required a detour through the riverbed. This was quite a bit back in the valley and I do not envy the workers who have to haul their equipment back there to fix it.

Mt. Adams

  At the top of Franklin Ridge we were rewarded with a nice view of Mt. Adams. From there on it was all downhill. I have been to the bottom of Multnomah Falls before, but this time I got to see it from above. That was quite impressive, but some of the other falls we saw on this hike were very nice too.

Multnomah Falls from above

Triple Falls

For dinner we went to the Horse Brass pub. Maybe not the highest level culinary institute, but I enjoyed my bangers and the beer was good too. Balazs, visiting from Japan, practised his tipping skills. He wasn't thrilled with his Sheppard's pie. Dave and I explained to him that it was not the waitress who tosses it into the microwave and that he should not stiff her for that.

As always, the remaining pictures are on picasa.