Multnomah – Franklin Ridge Loop, Nov 8th

Trying to catch falls colors in Oregon can be a bit of a challenge for many reasons. For starters, we don’t have a lot of trees that go brown and drop all their leaves in the winter. Most of our forests are covered in different pine species that stay green throughout the winter. The other reason is that it can be a very delicate balance. AS leaves start to turn yellow, the rain also start. If it doesn’t rain too much, then you get a chance but, this is Oregon. Nothing like not too much rain. This year in particular with the visit from el Niño, weather started turning grey and rainy pretty fast so we had kind of a boom, everything is yellow now kind of deal. Still, with lousy weather, we wanted to get a hike in an area with good fall colors. After looking for a while we ended up re-visiting an old loop that usually has a lot of potential. We usually stay away from Multnomah as it’s a tourist attraction and you get a lot of people. This day though, for some strange reason (or just because we got there early) the parking lot was almost empty. That gave me a chance to take a picture of Multnomah Falls and the bridge without any people, a very rare sight. After admiring the fall we marched our way up via the 11 (yes, they are numbered) switchbacks to the top of the fall before entering he Multnomah basin. That’s when people start to thin out and you finally are in the forest. We were welcomed with a very lush forest covered in moss. Even though the sky was covered in dark grey, we had some really nice colors ranging from the still yellow leaves on some limbs to the brown covering the ground. It was a quiet hike as some parts where almost deep in fog. Creeks were also noticeable higher with the rain so that was a relief. IN all, nothing to complain about. It was a fantastic fall hike



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