Horsetail Falls, Ponytail Falls, and Oneonta Gorge

After all those other nature park posts, I realized that I never posted pictures from last weekend's trip!  Stu had once taken the kids (without me) to Horsetail and Ponytail Falls in the Gorge.  The kids wanted to show me.  So we bundled up and off we went!  All these pictures were taken by Stu.

Horsetail Falls is the falls at the bottom, near the road.  Also really near Multnomah Falls.



See the pretty view?  Also, the sun is shining.



Ponytail Falls is the top of the hike.  It is beautiful, but the most important part is that you can walk under the falls.  That's where the trail goes. If you look closely, you can see Marcus and I in the bottom left corner of this picture.  Stuart is a little further on, just past the tree.



We walked a little further to see a nice view of the Gorge.  And stopped for a tripod-and-timer picture.



On the way back, the kids decided to climb on the rocks a bit.  Marcus said that the opening under the falls looked like a mouth, and he was scared it would close on us.  But he still climbed up with his brother.  You can just barely see me with both boys on the right side of this picture.



This is a pretty good personality shot of Stuart.



I wonder if he looks like anybody we know.



During almost the entire trip, Marcus complained. He didn't want to go, he wanted to go home, couldn't someone carry him? I ended up holding his hand (but not carrying him) most of the way. Even downhill.  Perhaps you might notice the smug look on his face.



Then we went over to Oneonta Gorge, maybe a mile back on the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway.  I forget the name of the waterway that travels through it.



There were steps leading down to the water, plus big warnings about some logjam that seems to have cleared itself in recent years.



We stopped mainly to walk through the tunnel.



Are you ready for the full force of Stuart, running at you?









He rarely stops short.  Consider yourself lucky.

I didn't notice until I was looking at the pictures later, but people have scratched their initials into the green muck on the rocks.



It's a really neat tunnel.