October, 2025
Today was a quiet day exploring more of the land and lakes and waterways that hug the north side of the Columbia River, the Washington State side. Noteworthy to me today were three areas … one national scenic area (St. Cloud) … one lake (Franz Lake) … and one small mountain (name to be disclosed when we see it). The RED star in the image below is where I was camped. You can see that I don’t usually have to drive very far from a campground where I’m staying to find interesting things.
The first area I visited was the St. Cloud National Scenic Area. It had been a fruit tree farm but had been abandoned years ago and now is slowly being taken over by native trees and shrubs.
When I first pulled off the highway to see it, I was impressed with the railroad tracks.
Above … looking west (with the big white truck in the parking lot). You can see that the parking lot would hold a great number of cars.
Below … looking east. Makes me think about taking a train ride along the Columbia one of these days.
Then I walked into the scenic area. There were several trails here, and picnic tables. Two separate cars arrived while I was here. Both groups were local folks who often came here on a nice day and usually walked out to the Columbia River for a picnic lunch.
I walked to the river, but took no photos out there. As I walked back up to my truck, I got sidetracked by the apple trees still growing here. The other people who were here told me they often picked lots of fruit from the trees … good eatin’!
But they warned me not to pick up any of the fruit from the ground. There are lots of deer here, and raccoon, and an occasional cougar, and a few bears (tho not many) … and those folks DO eat the fruit on the ground, and drool on it, and paw through it, and walk on it … stuff like that. So it’s best not to touch the fruit that’s on the ground.
It was a beautiful area, and well maintained to allow people to come and enjoy it. But by far the huge majority of the land was untouched and was being allowed to return to its normal state.
I then drove just a couple of miles further along the main road and came upon this parking area right next to the highway, with what looked to be some signs. So I pulled over to check it out.
It was a good-sized overlook of Franz Lake.
Franz Lake is protected for the wildlife who live there and for its water. The water you see in the photo below is not the Columbia, it’s Franz Lake. There used to be a hiking trail in the distance, between Franz Lake and the Columbia, but it has been closed in order to keep people out.
In the very far distance (way over there in Oregon), I could see what looked like a waterfall.
I think you can see it in the photo below … just a tad left of center, and just a tad below center … a tiny white line.
I zoomed in with the camera and indeed found a waterfall! I looked it up on Google Earth after I got home. It’s Horsetail Falls and feeds into the Columbia River on the Oregon side of the river.
That overlook had several signs describing the area, past human use of the area, how it’s being protected and restored today. Here are just a few of the signs.
I like the sentiment of the last two signs above, especially that last one with the photo of the swans. “Water flows over these hands. May I use them skillfully to preserve our precious planet.”
Of course, I would have loved to hike down to the lake and sit and watch the birds there, but had there been a trail that allowed me to do that, then that would have defeated the whole purpose of protecting the lake and the area around it. So I enjoyed it from afar.
Back in the big white truck, I then drove east of the campground where I was camped and, to this day, I don’t remember where I stopped to see the next thing that made me smile.
It’s the small mountain that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post. The one whose name will be revealed! 🙂
Here’s my first view of the mountain, below. Maybe it’s just a hill, but it is a big rock of a hill! And, the more I looked at it, the more I saw two large, dark eyes, looking right at me. Whoa. So I parked the truck and walked out that trail to get a little closer.
And as I got closer (below), I could see more of its face. Obviously, it was looking a bit to my right. You can see the nostrils under that eyeball on the right. Oh my word, it’s a gorilla!
And I swear, I really do, I swear that right at that moment the mountain started to move as the gorilla started to raise its head. It snorted one great big loud SNORT out those nostrils right at me. I turned and trotted right back to my big white truck, jumped in, locked my doors, and headed back down the road to my little camper trailer, finally safe and snug in the trailer. Wow “Gorilla Mountain” is not to be messed with!