The Best Hike in the Columbia River Gorge | Oregon Travel Guide | Skoolie Life
The Wahkeena Falls Loop Trail
If you only do one hike on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, do this one!
The Columbia River Gorge is a must-see area that runs along the river that borders Washington and Oregon. Both sides of the river have fantastic views and hikes, but if you’re on the Oregon side and are limited on time, the Wahkeena Falls Loop Trail (found on Alltrails) is the best way to see as many waterfalls as possible in a single hike! This loop trail is 6.1 miles long, but can be longer if you decide to do any of the off-shoots or explore around the waterfalls more. We spent around 3-4 hours doing the hike and spending time at each waterfall, and clocked around 7 miles total. Most hikers on Alltrails recommend doing the hike counter-clockwise, but we did clockwise and I recommend doing it this way as well in order to see Multnomah Falls early before the crowds pick up. The amount of incline along the trail is pretty evenly split no matter which way you hike it, so in my opinion it makes more sense to get the most popular waterfall out of the way first, which is:
Multnomah Falls
Multnomah Falls is 620 feet tall, and probably one of the most recognizable waterfalls in the entire country, and for good reason! It’s absolutely picturesque with the two different levels and a gorgeous bridge in between. Right now due to covid, the falls requires tickets to be purchased for a specific arrival time slot at recreation.gov in order to limit the crowd size. Tickets are only $1 each, and allow you to pick a 1 hour time slot that you can arrive at any time during, and then you can stay as long as you’d like to once you’re there. I highly recommend going as early as possible to avoid the crowds because it still gets insanely busy even with the ticket requirements. We arrived right at 9am and there were still plenty of people there already, but it was empty enough that we could take our time at Multnomah, and there was plenty of room on the viewing platform for me to set up my tripod and camera gear for a long exposure.
When hiking clockwise, after viewing Multnomah falls from the bottom you’ll hike up to the bridge to see the top portion of Multnomah, and then you’ll climb a series of MANY switchbacks to go to the very top of Multnomah, where there’s another viewing platform looking over the edge.
After checking out the top of Multnomah, continue along the Wahkeena Falls trail to the next main waterfall. For this blog I’ll only be mentioning the named waterfalls along this trail, but there are other smaller ones throughout as well that you’ll pass. After Multnomah, going clockwise the next main waterfall is Weisendfanger Falls, which is 50 feet tall. You can go right up to the bottom of this one, but you have to do a good bit of climbing over huge fallen trees, so we opted to just view this one from afar since we had Sam (our dog) with us.
Next is Ecola Falls, which is 55 feet tall. This one is not as easy to view, since you just get a glimpse of it from the top as the trail passes it, so I went for a quick iPhone shot of this one.
Next, you’ll have a large portion of the hike without any waterfalls, but the trail is still very scenic and meanders through previously burned sections of the forest from a past wildfire.
When you’re to the other side of the loop, you’ll then pass Fairy Falls.
Another iPhone image
After Fairy Falls, you’ll hike along a really gorgeous unnamed waterfall (at least as far as I know) that is more of a meandering, gradual falls that runs down through many levels of moss-covered rocks.
Lastly is Wahkeena Falls, which is a really gorgeous end to this amazing hike. Wahkeena is like Multnomah falls in the fact that it’s a two-tiered waterfall. After Wahkeena Falls, you’ll climb down another series of switchbacks and then hike back over to the parking lot for Multnomah Falls.
This is definitely not one of those hikes that leaves you feeling like the amount of hiking wasn’t worth it for the views! This hike is SO scenic, and is a super efficient way to see tons of waterfalls. When checking out hikes on Alltrails, there are SO MANY other hikes with waterfalls though! If you have time to check more out, I HIGHLY recommend Latourell Falls. You can do the full loop, or simply head to the right out of the parking lot and walk right up to the falls. This one was just as scenic and a must-do as Multnomah falls, in my opinion, because the rock formations behind the falls are SO cool, and you can walk right up underneath it to get the full scale of this 249 foot waterfall! The image below is just an iPhone shot that doesn’t even do it justice, and I was seriously kicking myself for not bringing my real camera for this one!
It’s safe to say that when it comes to waterfall hikes in the Columbia River Gorge, you really can’t go wrong! It seems like almost every single hike in the area has some sort of waterfall to see, but the Wahkeena Falls Loop trail is definitely one you don’t want to miss!