Ainsworth State Park, Oregon

 

You may have noticed that it has been a few days since my last post. We have been doing many fun activities with my daughter and son in law. The pace of play has been crazy. I am now behind again. The good news is that I have some amazing pictures and some great stories to tell. But…first I have to document what happened before they arrived.

We had reservations at Ainsworth State Park for July 1-6. We rarely make reservations except for holiday weekends. We wanted a good place to stay for the weekend and the first few days with Shannon and Brian. We had very little to do to get going on July 1. We were ready to leave La Page Park by about 9:30 and only had 80 miles to drive down the Columbia River Gorge to Ainsworth SP.

As we made our way down the gorge, we had some good views of Mt. Hood and the dam at The Dalles and John Day. I was happy to see fish ladders on each of the dams.

The flora and fauna changed from dry dessert to Pine forest and then rain forest. It is really amazing how quickly it changes. The scenes along to gorge are beautiful.

We arrived at Ainsworth at 11:30 AM. That must be some kind of record for us. The good news is that our site was unoccupied  and we were able to set up and enjoy the rest of the day. It is a busy park and you can hear the interstate and Scenic Hwy 30 and a TRAIN! All three are very close, but it was also very hot, so we turned on the AC and that drowned out all of the noise. Here is a shot of our site. Look our awning is out. I think that is the first time since Colorado last year.

Here is the view up to the top of the canyon from our campsite. It is very impressive.

On July 2, we decided to go for a hike on the trails along the highway. We had heard about some waterfalls around here. We walked in a forest of old growth trees. They were beautiful and huge.

We walked for about 3 miles and came to a waterfall called upper Horsetail falls. You could walk behind the falls.

This area has the highest concentration of high waterfalls in the world. They are amazing to look at and some are even brave enough to go swimming in the pools.

We hung out for a while and took some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked back down the trail and had some beautiful views of the Columbia river.

We then walked down the trail to the big Horsetail falls. At 176 feet it is very impressive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kim took her shoes off and enjoyed the cool water.

It was getting hot, so we decided to head back to camp and relax for the rest of the day. I knew then, if I was going to see anymore waterfalls via hiking trails, I would be doing it alone. The trails are steep and rocky, but the reward is some beautiful views of waterfalls and other scenery.

The first two days at Ainsworth were hot, but good. I was planning some more hikes to see some of the other waterfalls. Come back to see what else I found in the lush paradise.