Day 98: Cascade Locks and Tunnel Falls.

August 16th, 2021

Mile Marker: 2147.6

Miles Hiked Today: 24

Today was quite an eventful, wonderful day.

We slept in knowing that we only had around 24 ish miles to do for the day. Close to 7 we headed out for the day. We kept it an easy stroll for the morning, taking our time. Majority of the morning was in the forest and covered in blown down trees.

We had to walk around, under, and over trees for miles. I don’t mind them much though. It always makes me feel like I am in an obstacle race which I enjoy.

However today I did manage to slam both of my knees into an outstretched branch, one after the other, on two different trees that I was climbing over. 🤦🏽‍♀️

We had magnificent views of Mt Hood, Mt Saint Helens, and Mt Adams this morning.

It kept the miles flying by as I kept looking through the trees at them. Eventually we came out onto a clear open ridge and got perfect views of them.

Just magical!

We then arrived at a trail junction to wait for the rest of the crew.

From here we could decide to take an alternate trail instead of the PCT that goes by “Tunnel Falls”. I was told that the waterfall and tunnel that goes underneath it is incredible and a definite must.

I was sold.

We were also told that this alternate is primarily downhill until we hit Cascade Locks.

The first part of the route literally headed almost straight downhill. Not the easy cruise type of downhill but the steep, need to be careful type.

After about 3 or so miles it leveled out and went back to a gentle downhill route in the valley.

We crossed many small waterfalls and some larger pools that we decided to stop and take a dip in. They were a beautiful blue and surprisingly deep.

We then continued on feeling excited to see the well known Tunnel Falls waterfall.

We rounded a corner and all of us were thrown back.

No friggin way!? It felt like I was in some far away land.

It was jaw dropping.

We continued on the path and went behind the falls. I was surprised at how little we got wet.

It was hard to continue to walk on, I wanted to stare at it and all it’s glory for a long time.

Eventually we continued on excited that we only had 7 or so more miles to Cascade Locks. Which meant, we were done with Oregon and would soon be crossing the famous Bridge of Gods into Washington.

I just couldn’t wait!!

We arrived at the trailhead around 5 pm and hiked the 2 miles to Cascade Locks on pavement. We could see the bridge that we would be crossing tomorrow and I couldn’t help the giddy feeling in my stomach, we are almost there!

We decided to get a place to stay for the night and then went out to dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Columbia River.

While we were there, because of our timing, Some Guy had recently finished his thru hike and decided to stop by.

He joined us at dinner and we popped up to give him a huge hug as it had been a while since we had last seen him.

It was fun to catch up and hear about his journey and the finish. We all tried to convince him to also come join us and re-hike Washington with us.

We ended the evening getting some goodies from the grocery store and are heading to bed relatively early.

I am so stoked for tomorrow!

Iz and Oz