Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls pours over a cliff of Columbia River basalt, dark volcanic rock laid down in enormous lava floods millions of years ago and stacked hundreds of feet thick. Little Multnomah Creek, fed by springs and snowmelt off Larch Mountain to the south, gathers just enough water to make a year-round waterfall, thin in late summer and roaring in spring.

The reason so many tall, narrow waterfalls hang along this one stretch of the Gorge goes back to the Ice Age. Near the end of the last glacial period, a series of gigantic floods, released when an ice dam holding back a glacial lake in Montana broke again and again, tore down the Columbia and scoured the canyon walls nearly vertical. Side streams that once met the river gently were left spilling off high cliffs, and Multnomah is the grandest of them.

From the lodge, a short paved path reaches the base and the Benson Bridge. A steeper mile of switchbacks climbs to a railed platform at the lip of the upper falls, where you can look straight down the drop and out across the river to Washington.

In 1914, the lumberman and philanthropist Simon Benson was walking the grounds with Samuel Lancaster, the engineer building the new Columbia River Highway, and remarked that a footbridge across the falls would be a fine thing. That year the Benson Bridge went up, a graceful reinforced-concrete arch set about a hundred feet above the lower falls. It still carries visitors across the water today.

Benson went further. He bought the land around the falls and gave it to the city of Portland for a public park, so that the waterfall would never be walled off behind a fee gate or a hotel. In 1925 the Cascadian-style Multnomah Falls Lodge was built at the base from local stone and timber, designed by the Portland architect A.E. Doyle. It still stands at the foot of the trail, on the National Register of Historic Places, serving travelers just as it did when the highway was new.

Tourism here is older still. As early as the 1880s, trains from Portland stopped near the base so passengers could step off and walk to the falls, one of the first tourist attractions in the young state.

The falls carry a story long told of the Multnomah people, and it is worth telling with care. As the legend goes, a sickness once swept through the village, and a medicine man said only the sacrifice of a chief's daughter, offered from the high cliff, would call on the Great Spirit to lift it. To save her people, the young woman climbed the rock and stepped off, and where she fell the water began to pour, a silver ribbon that had never been there before.

In the telling, the fine drifting mist that hangs at the upper falls is her spirit, still watching over the people below. Like all such stories it exists in several versions, passed down through generations, and it is offered here as a legend held by the Native people of this river, not as documented history.

The walls around the falls are a hanging garden: sword fern, moss, and dripping seeps cling to the basalt, and the forest is Douglas fir, western hemlock, and bigleaf maple. Watch the cliff faces for the white flash of water and for peregrine falcons and swifts working the updrafts, and listen along the creek for the American dipper, a gray songbird that walks underwater to feed.

In September 2017 the Eagle Creek Fire, started by a firework, swept the cliffs above Multnomah Falls and burned much of the surrounding Gorge. The lodge and the falls survived, protected by crews who stayed through the night, but the slopes above are still recovering, which is why staying on the trails here matters more than ever. Rockfall and the occasional closure are part of a landscape putting itself back together.

Spring brings the falls to full power, fed by snowmelt and gorge rain, and the surrounding creeks and side falls run high. Summer is the busiest and driest season, when a timed-use permit is often needed to reach the site and the parking fills early. Fall quiets the crowds and adds gold to the maples.

Winter has its own reward. In a hard cold snap the falls can freeze into towers and curtains of ice, a rare and beautiful sight, though the trails turn slick and the upper path may close. Whatever the season, coming at the edges of the day rewards you with the falls closer to the way the first train passengers found it.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is a place we chose through independent editorial review, never a paid placement.

In the busy summer season, a timed-use permit is generally required to park in the main lot off the interstate during daytime hours, reserved online ahead of time for a small fee. It is worth checking the current requirements before you go, since the system changes year to year, and note that a permit reserves an arrival window, not a guaranteed parking space. Outside the summer permit hours, and if you arrive by shuttle, bike, or on foot, you typically do not need one.

Timing is everything. The falls are busiest from mid-morning through late afternoon in summer, so arriving early, before around nine, or in the evening, after six, means far smaller crowds, easier parking, and, conveniently, no permit needed during those hours. Spring and fall weekdays are quieter than summer weekends, and a rainy day can leave the paved viewpoints almost to yourself.

It depends how far you want to go. Reaching the famous Benson Bridge between the two tiers is a short, mostly paved walk of well under a mile round trip. Continuing all the way to the overlook at the top of the upper falls is a steeper climb of a bit over two miles round trip with real elevation gain, taking most people around an hour and a half to two hours. The lower viewpoint is accessible to nearly everyone.

It flows impressively year-round, fed by underground springs, but it runs fullest and most powerful in the winter and spring from rain and snowmelt, when spring also brings wildflowers along the trails. Summer flows are lighter but the falls are still striking, and in a hard winter the mist can even coat the surroundings in ice. There is really no bad season to see it.

Sturdy shoes with good grip are wise, because even the paved lower path gets slippery from the constant mist, and proper footwear matters if you hike to the top. Bring a light layer too, since the spray off the 620-foot falls noticeably cools the air near the base even on a warm day. A water bottle and a camera round out the essentials.