Journey to the Pool of the Winds

Beacon Rock State Park, Washington

Rodney Falls and the Pool
of the Winds on the 
Hamilton Mountain Trail.

-S. Kramer, Photo

Most people who have visited the Columbia Gorge are familiar with Beacon Rock. Many have hiked to the top of this eroded volcano, and many return to their cars and drive off without giving its surroundings a second though. But few of these people know about the falls on Hardy Creek, or the breathtaking "Pool of the Winds." Beacon Rock is just the centerpiece in Beacon Rock State Park, a large forested natural area. And it is in this expanse of forest, far above the rock itself, that the falls are hidden.

To climb Beacon Rock, you pull off SR-14 to the right, but to reach the falls, turn left at the Rock, down the road that disappears into the woods. This road passes a picnic area, and playground, which doubles as a trailhead for an extensive network of trails leading to Hamilton Mountain. Unless you research the area, or read guidebooks, these falls seem to be a well-kept secret: a waypoint on a much larger network of dirt paths.

The Trail to Hamilton Mountain

The CCC-built picnic shelter near
the Hamilton Mountain Trailhead

-S. Kramer, Photo

The hike departs from an old stone masonry picnic shelter built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. Upon setting out on the hike, the forest gets thicker, and the air, colder. The wind in the canopy, along with the bubbling song of a Swainson's Thrush, and creaking trees form a mellow background track along with the distant rushing of cars on State Route 14. For those who merely pass through the gorge, and see a wide blue river lined with grass and cottonwoods, and beyond that, a sea of coniferous forest blanketing the basalt walls of an ancient canyon. But beneath this canopy lies an understory full of diverse wildflowers, creeks, waterfalls and wildlife: out of sight to those on the highways. Entering this understory, the trees obstruct your view of this larger scene, and you are left inside this forest, experiencing it in person, acre by acre. And for one with an appreciation of nature, it is very easy to enjoy.  In late may, bleeding hearts are finishing and going to seed, anemones and thimbleberries are in full bloom, and in various places, the orange buds of tiger lilies hint at their upcoming majesty.

Like A Waterfall Collection

M. Kramer on a rock ledge
on the edge of the trail.
-S. Kramer, Photo

The trail climbs through the ancient landslides and hills of the Gorge, passing from thick coniferous forests, into an open area beneath a Powerline with shrubs, wild strawberry and vine maple, and back into the woods, though they are thinner now, and warmer. after a little over a mile, the trail comes to a junction at the Hardy Falls Overlook.

Unlike most notable waterfalls, the first "falls" it isn't a single waterfall at all, but a collection of lesser waterfalls. A series of cascades tumbles down a basalt Rick pile forming hundreds of tiny waterfalls in the process. Left of this, beside the lookout, a small creek tumbles down a sheer wall. Both meet at the bottom, and continue in a large horsetail-like falls, out of sight from the lookout, and nearly impossible to see from any angle. It’s reminiscent of some sort of surreal "waterfall collection" like some wizard gathered waterfalls on his travels and brought them to this mountain for display. I can't speak for other travelers, but having grown up visiting the likes of Multnomah Falls, I had been hoping for something a bit more, and I mistakenly believed we had reached the main attraction. I had been promised waterfalls after all, and I had found falls, and had I been alone, I may have turned around, but thankfully I wasn't, and our party continued onward half a mile uphill, downhill, around a bend, then downhill to an ancient, yet sturdy bridge lashed together with logs and primitive planks, passing over a stretch of white water. And unlike the previous waterfall collection, the bridge went right over Rodney Falls: it's impressive, and impossible to miss. I smiled at Rodney Falls, then I looked uphill and…

My Jaw Dropped.

The summit of Hamilton Mountain
seen from the clearing on the
Hamilton Mountain Trail.

-S. Kramer, Photo

From the trail approaching these upper falls, you see nothing but a shoot emerging from a hole in the rock. It's just enough information to grab your curiosity, and draw you in. Approaching it you feel a Sense of awe and apprehension. Then you scramble up the last few feet of rough basalt guarded by an iron fence, and look in on the Pool of the Winds.

For a place with such a name, you would expect a scene from a fantasy novel, something extraordinary: that is exactly what you get. Hardy Creek over time dug a slot canyon into the hillside, forming a waterfall, Rodney Falls, almost entirely walled in, draining into a shallow basalt room filled with water: the Pool of the Winds itself. This drains through a small keyhole just wide enough for the creek. There are some places where God puts his handiwork on display: you don’t want to leave the falls.

But you have to. Some continue on to Hamilton Mountain, while others make the return trip down to the parking lot. We all have lives to return to in the modern world, but we do so having pulled back the metaphorical curtain, and explored just a bit of the wonderland hidden beneath the forest canopy. -KP

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Sources:
Washignton State Parks Map of Beacon Rock State Park:

https://parks.state.wa.us/DocumentCenter/View/1840/Beacon-Rock-State-Park-PDF

ProTrails "Pool of the Winds" Gallery:

https://www.protrails.com/gallery/740/oregon/portland-columbia-river-gorge/pool-of-the-winds#image-8

A Beginner's Guide to Taking the Long Way Home

Best Laid Plans...

On paper, my outing was simple: Grab my bicycle, Perseverance, visit Garden Home, then head down the Fanno Creek Trail to Derry-Dell Creek, explore a bit, and head home. I never made it, and ended up, by my own will, or perhaps stubbornness, in the distant suburbs of Portland. As I left home southbound on the Fanno creek Trail, I was still sticking to my original plan. 

A northbound WES crosses SW North
Dakota St. in Tigard, OR

In many ways, a trip on this path always has company of some sort: other people, vehicles on the highways, or perhaps the trains. The trail and the Portland and western Railroad both follow the creek, so the train is a near-constant companion. During rush hour, TriMet runs its WES commuter train south along the trail: you hear the WES cruise through town, digital bell clanging obnoxiously, distinctive horn blaring.

About a mile shy of Tigard, I noticed that the rim of Perseverance's rear tire hit bottom when I jumped a curb: a flat. I hadn’t carried a pump since mine had been lost in the woods on a beach trip. I was stuck.

I had managed to reach Derry Dell Creek, so I decided to explore as much as I could before heading home. I followed a well-blazed trail into the woods towards the creek, but I had only travelled about a hundred feet before I passed hedge clippers, bags of leaves and at least three tents. Someone had blazed this trail deliberately, and probably didn't want to be disturbed. So much for exploring.

I returned to Perseverance. I could patch her tire in the park but I had no way to refill it. My best bet was walking to Tigard Transit Center and catching any combination of transit, including a tempting ride on TriMet's commuter train, WES. In fact, why not ride it AWAY from home to Wilsonville? I had plenty of time. I checked my wallet for cash and started off with my wounded steed in the direction of Tigard. 

A Table of Heads

Another WES was departing Tigard northbound as I arrived in town. I got off and walked the remainder of the way to the fair machine, bought fare, and waited. WES stations are pretty barren save for the Interactivator, a series of unlabeled brass heads riding rails inside a steel table. They have them at every stop: words carved into the steel name the characters but don’t tell you which is which, along with a "transporter." The idea, of course, is to pit the characters against each other and form stories about how they interact, but with the train sharing a track with the characters “The sleeper narrowly avoids getting hit by a train while the laugher looks on” is a tempting story to use. Thrice I encountered quicker routes home: a Line 78,  Line 42, the new Beaverton bus I never rode, and even a northbound WES. In all three cases, it was a willful decision to stay on the train platform and wait for the train to take me even further from home.

The "Interactivator" at the
Tigard WES station. The
Historic Mask head is in the
foreground in front of the
train, the upside down head
is to the right.

When the WES finally arrived, I tied up Perseverance in the wheelchair area, and took a seat. There were faces on the train, but none of the extreme examples from the steel game board—and thankfully, no one I know of narrowly avoided getting hit.

WES is a unique experience. 

The line southbound to Salem and beyond last saw regular passenger trains in 1933, so prior to TriMet opening WES, the line side scenery had been seen only by railroad employees. It's a fairly quiet and peaceful ride. The powered railcar's engine chugs along as the train glides past neighborhoods, forests, and lakes full to the brim of pond lilies. The train reached Wilsonville, waited a half hour and turned around. As a passenger, you can travel no further. Looking southbound, the Passenger track ends, and the line stretches on into the distance, a set of signals guarding it, the tracks silent and dark. I rode north again, and got off at Hall and Nimbus, waving to a Few people I didn't realize I had befriended, and headed uphill to catch the 56.

Line 42 once more caught me waiting at the bus stop, but I couldn't recall where the 42 went. I needed to go uphill, down Scholls Ferry road. I held up fingers to sign 5-6. he nodded, and then the bus turned, and headed down Scholls Ferry road, in the direction I was hoping to travel. I swore and after waiting a few more minutes, came to the inevitable conclusion that the 42 had--for the second time that day-- tried to save me from my self-induced misadventure. After a twenty-minute walk, I passed the stop the 42 would have dropped me at, much closer to home than the stop I had for the second time refused its assistance.

My bike tire wasn't fixed until the next day, and as of writing this, I still don't have a pump. But I won't forget the coincidental kindness of the Line 42, and if one ever tries to offer me a ride again, I will forsake my stubbornness and hop on . -KP

Bibliography:
Oregon Electric Railway, in the Oregon Encyclopedia
https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/oregon_electric_railway/#.XQLSNNNKjm0

The Interactivators: Sculpture for TriMet WES Commuter Rail by MARY PRIESTER 
https://trimet.org/pdfs/store/Interactivators.pdf

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The Plum Tree Has fallen, Long Live The Tree!

Our own rose bushes, still
months from blooming, unlike
the rosebush at the streetlamp

It’s been over a year since I wrote my article lamenting the loss of the Plum Tree a block uphill from my family’s house. Since it was cut down, I located the stump--all that remained of it--then watched as this last remnant was dug up and hauled off. The tree, i later discovered, was a cherry plum, a relatively fast growing tree with a short lifespan, considered an invasive in Portland. In street-views, the plum tree appears very scraggly, and the stump was covered in fungi. Perhaps it was rotting, and had become a danger to the house, or its power lines: perhaps it was just time for it to go.

And yet despite this acceptance, I still think it is a shame, that my evening walk to the glowing tree can’t be repeated every spring. But of course, time has gone on: leaves grew, changed colors and fell, and then came our series of late snowstorms. The whole time, I paid no heed to the surrounding garden, choosing instead to focus on that stump each time I passed the site. But at some point, something changed. I was so focused on the remains of the plum tree, that I have no idea when they planted the rose bush. 

As with its predecessor, I only noticed it when I saw pink flowers out of the corner of my eye while driving by. I paid it no heed right away so I don’t know when this was: it could have been sometime in March, or maybe early April. But by the middle of April, when my curiosity finally got the better of me, the blossoms were gone.

I inspected our own roses, and noticing that they were nowhere near blooming, and figured I had missed another opportunity. To my surprise though, when I went to inspect the rosebush beneath the streetlight, I saw it was covered in dozens of buds, ready to break into full bloom again before the end of the month perhaps, it’s foliage that same shade of purple, and I distinctly remember the flowers being pink. Yet unlike it’s predecessor, the entire plant is in very good health, growing skyward. 

There may never be another plum tree, but I suppose that there doesn’t have to be. It was cut down for whatever reason, like a piano player canceling a show at the intermission, and I was too busy demanding a refund at the ticket counter to notice the child coming onstage with a violin to happily perform instead. Nearby, a series of plum trees grow from the bushes: typical of an invasive species. They are away from the streetlight. The rose bush though, was planted directly in the spotlight, amid a sea of grape hyacinth. A new purple tree with pink blossoms: a phoenix rising from the soil, as it were.

When I finished the last article I originally wanted to warn that good things should be enjoyed while they last, but changed it to “don’t take them for granted.” I didn’t want to advise anyone to dwell on the present. Both are good pieces of advice, but I realize now that while I had ignored my own advice. By continuing to ponder what remained of something special to me, I ignored the rest of the garden entirely, and overlooked something new and exciting literally taking root before my very eyes.