Multnomah Falls

Location: Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, Multnomah Falls, Multnomah County Stream: Multnomah Creek Alternate Names: Height: 611 ft. Access:            Distance: n/a Elevation: 50 ft. Season: year-round Difficulty: Form:   Lat/Long:45.5762, -122.11603 Directions:Along I-84, take exit 31 at the signed turnoff for Multnomah Falls (31 miles east of Portland).

Multnomah Falls is, of course, THE place to stop for tourists in the Columbia River Gorge area in Oregon. It is awesome how this waterfall seems to "tower" over everything, a sight to see. However, you will not have this wonderful waterfall to yourself. Try to get there early in the morning to avoid the rush. At around sunrise, there will probably be very few, if any, other people here, and it is a wonderful experience viewing this waterfall with no one else around. But at any other time of day, the hordes of people around the falls ruin the experience in my opinion. After you have had enough time basking in the presence of Multnomah, hike up to the top of the waterfall (2 miles RT). Theres not really a good view of the falls from the top, but there are other waterfalls up there, and also some good views of the Columbia River, and you can peer down at all the people looking up at the falls from the viewpoints below.

There are a couple interesting things that I wonder about Multnomah Falls. The first, is that it is commonly advertised as being the 2nd highest "year-round" waterfall in the United States, after Yosemite Falls (and the 4th highest in all the U.S.). It is nowhere near being the 2nd highest year-round falls in the U.S. Here are just a very few that are higher: Bridalveil Falls, Chilnualna Falls, Colonial Creek Falls, Hanakapiai Falls.

The second thing is its listed "official" height of 611 ft. I wonder if that is really the correct height. I measured it as being 599 ft. high. The upper section I measured to be 540 ft., which is very close to the official height of 542 ft. The lower section I measured to be 59 ft. high, compared to the official 69 ft. There is, however, a small drop at the top of Multnomah that is sometimes called "Little Multnomah Falls", and it is about 10 ft. high, so that could possibly make up the difference in the overall height of 611 ft. I'm not confident about that, though, because if this was the case, then the lower section official height would be 59 ft., not 69 ft. It is a bit of a mystery.

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