Monday, October 31, 2011

Historic Columbia River Highway

I love scenic byways and whenever there is an opportunity to take one, I do. Therefore, I could not resist the opportunity to drive along the Historic Columbia River Highway, an approximately 75-mile (120 km) scenic highway through the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. The highway was built between 1913 and 1922 and it was the first planned scenic roadway in the United States. From the very beginning, the highway was envisioned not just as means of traveling, but designed to take full advantage of all the natural beauty along the route. As such it was recognized in several historic registries, e.g., as a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

The highway indeed runs extremely close to many beautiful sights, including several waterfalls. We stopped at two of them, Horsetail and Multnomah Falls.


The Horsestail Fall:

The Multnomah Falls: