Wangsgard Reunion--Part 5: Wahclella Falls Hike

Wahclella Falls is one of the very few hikes Damon and I had previously done in the Gorge. We hiked it 4 years ago, so it had been awhile, but we thought it would be a good choice for our motley crew of hikers. It's a mostly-shaded moderate one-mile hike that we thought would be appropriate for a stroller with rugged wheels.

Sadly, the trail that we remembered as being pretty wide and packed became much narrower and rockier than we had remembered. Many kudos go to Joette who stayed behind with Anya, who was not up for the hike herself. They stayed by the small river coming out of the canyon that we hiked into. We felt bad about mis-judging the hike. (Sorry again, Joette.)


Here's the crew starting out (with Anya and Joette still on the trail with us). I had Damon run ahead to take this photo to make sure that Katie was in some of the pictures . . .

. . .because here's where it comes in handy to have a sister-in-law who is an excellent photographer. Thanks to Katie we have way too many photographs of this beautiful hike to post on here, but I'm still going to try to put in as many as I can! I think that this post has more photos than any other that I've ever done. I hope you enjoy.

Christian found a fuzzy caterpillar.

Looking back on the trail, you can see Christian showing off his caterpillar to Uncle Logan and his dad (Jed).

More nature watchers:

The first waterfall we saw was coming down a sheer rock face as we passed by on a bridge. It looked like a fun--and steep--waterslide.

Here's the only shot of our entire little family. Too bad it's of all of our backsides!

Cascading down some rocky rapids:

I'm the far hiker in this photo, with my dad coming up behind me.

Here are Peter and Jed (with Kiera on his back) coming along a bridge and up the path behind my dad. (The cascades of 2 photos ago are just off to the left.)

Here come Gunnar, Christian, Jillaire, and Holly. At this point, that bridge is just down the hill behind us.

And here's Gumpin (my dad):

Finally, we made it to Wahclella Falls! Soren enjoyed the ride, I'm sure.

I love this photo of my dad and Maggie looking over the pool where the falls empty. Notice how my dad casually grabbed onto Maggie's hood, just in case. I love seeing how he displayed that protective instinct.

Another photo I love: Damon and his boy enjoying a rest after their busy hike. Gunnar was non-stop on this hike and Damon felt like he spent much of his time making sure Gunnar didn't fall off a cliff, or worse...jump. (More on Gunnar's hike in the next post.)

After a brief stop at the falls for photos, water, and granola bars, we continued on a loop that met back up with the same trail for the return to the trailhead where Joette and Anya were happily waiting for us. Hooray for all the hikers and perfect hiking weather!