There are plenty of great ways to soak in the wonder of the Columbia River Gorge. But a weekend at Columbia Cliff Villas is definitely top of the list. Think private veranda perched high above the river, cocktail in hand and soulmate by your side.
With its rough-cut stones and exposed timbers, the Timberline Lodge (timberlinelodge.com) is a special place any time of the year. In the winter, with fireplaces ablaze and skiing just out the door, this 1930s lodge is nothing short of magical.
There are plenty of great ways to soak in the wonder of the Columbia River Gorge. But a weekend at Columbia Cliff Villas is definitely top of the list. Think private veranda perched high above the river, cocktail in hand and soulmate by your side.
Rising out of the urban jungle, US 26 crosses the northernmost Oregon Cascades pass at Government Camp on the slopes of Mt. Hood and descends into the high desert. This scenic byway carries travelers from hectic metropolis, through evergreen forest and across the arid homeland of a sovereign nation all in the span of about an hour and a half.
In 1915, the two largest sawmills in the country (Shevlin-Hixon and Brooks-Scanlon) sat facing each other across the Deschutes River in Bend. It’s doubtful that anyone could have, through all that smoke, predicted that one day the small timber town would morph into a winter recreation destination. Perhaps a few of the Swedish and Norwegian loggers and mill workers, who brought the ski sports to Bend and Central Oregon, might have had a momentary flight of fancy that involved a future with an alpine ski area, miles of cross-country ski trails and possibly more breweries than churches.
Charlie Douglass faces supreme temptation daily. Nearly every morning he has a rendezvous with an enrober, a machine that releases a sensual wave of shining liquid chocolate over row after row of truffle centers.
In the early and mid 1970s, hundreds of dory fishermen set off from Pacific City in a quest that generously produced fishing legends. Ray Monroe had been there then, alongside his father and grandfather. As a young man, Monroe was one of the 300 or so commercially licensed salmon fishermen sailing dory boats out of Pacific City to harvest the bounty for which the Oregon Coast is renown. The old salts recount stories of making thousands of dollars in a single haul, full of fish, prized for its fight, profit and taste.
The Steens are not what you think. To most drivers-by, The Steens appear to be an endless medley of sagebrush and volcanic basalt set into a desert scalp of blonde grasses. If you never set fool’s foot outside of your car, that description will play nicely.
Eons of spewing volcanoes and cataclysmic floods created the Columbia River Gorge, where Oregon’s grandest river rolls through towering cliffs of basalt. Even Congress agreed this place was special. Twenty-five years ago, it named the Columbia River Gorge the country’s first National Scenic Area, protecting the Columbia’s most dramatic stretch, the eighty-five miles between the Sandy and Deschutes rivers.
