Ainsworth – Cascade Locks

October, 2018

On the first morning after settling in at Ainsworth State Park along the Columbia River in Oregon, I headed a bit east in the truck to check out the small town of Cascade Locks … and the actual locks there.  Having been a boater for many years, and having transitted the Hiram Chittenden Locks in Seattle more times than I can count, I was interested to see how they do it on this river.  Below is an aerial view of today’s Cascade Locks on the Columbia River.

For information about how a “lock” moves boats up and down, see this online VIDEO.

You’ll notice the calm water in the photo above.  And maybe you’ll notice that the water up-river from and down-river from the Locks (and on the right side of the island in the photo above) is all one level.  There’s no need for locks here anymore!  Boats don’t need to go up and down since the water is level.  In fact, the Locks here have been deactivated.  Well what’s that about?  Why did they build them then?

Turns out they surely DID need Locks here early on, but in recent years the Bonneville Dam was built and another (larger) set of locks were built downriver that raised the water level upriver (here) such that these Cascade Locks were put out of business.  But it still was really pretty here so I walked around and inspected everything and took lots of photos.

 

The walkway across what was the Cascade Locks is now a permanent foot bridge and cannot open for a boat to pass through.

The Lock doors down in the water have been removed.  Part of the hinge can be seen on the right side of the photo above … and in more detail in the photo below.  In the photo below, only the top six feet or so of the hinge shows.  The entire hinge is 40 feet tall!  Today (in the photo below) the hinge is still there but most of the hinge is under water.

 

The photo above shows the “bolts” that were secured in place deep inside the walls of the Locks.  The Lock doors were fastened to these bolts.  Each “bolt” is about 8″ in diameter.

With the river now at a constant height here, the walls of the Cascade Locks are now used to hold fishing platforms used by Native American people.  This method of fishing has been used by Native people for thousands of years.  I’m thinking it’s pretty clever.  They used this system from shore, from rock outcroppings, and down off of cliffs … they still use this system today and it works prefectly well.

The photo above is an aerial view of the Cascade Locks (to the right) and the vast expanse of smooth water to the left of the island, such that large boats travel at will on the left side of the island without needing to take the time to go through the Locks.

Two photos below show what the Cascade Locks used to look like, and what the terrible mess of rocks to the left of the island used to look like, before the Bonneville Dam and its locks were constructed.  Wow, I wouldn’t choose to go on the left side of that island back then!

 

So, what happened?  Why were the Cascade Locks built?  The Columbia River used to be a fairly straight-running river with little or no restriction.  But the mess of rocks shown above certainly changed that and so the Cascade Locks were built.  What happened?

Here’s the deal ….

First off, the Columbia River here runs from the east, then to the west to the Pacific Ocean.  This particular area of the Columbia has long been known as the “Bridge of the Gods”, first by Native American people in the area and more recently by people settling here from other parts of the world.

According to scientific history, the first, natural Bridge of the Gods was created by an enormous landslide between the lava cliffs of Table Mountain (in Oregon to the south) and the North wall (in Washington to the north) of the Columbia Gorge, somewhere between 1100 and 1250 A.D.  This landslide dammed the river.  The landslide was high enough that Native Americans could safely walk across it and cross the river.  This natural dam created a huge inland sea in eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and into Idaho.  But the Bridge of the Gods collapsed in the 1690s, which coincides with the date of the last Great Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes, creating the resulting exceptionally rocky Cascade Rapids.

The Native American Story offers a more poetic view.

Native American legend speaks of the creation and destruction of this natural bridge.  The People of the Columbia River had great difficulty crossing the wide Columbia River.  Manito, the Great Spirit, was sympathetic and built a stone bridge for them.  This stone bridge, called the great crossover, was so important that Manito placed Loo-Wit, an old and wise woman, as its guardian.  The grateful People gave it a new name, the Bridge of the Gods.

At about the same time, Manito also sent to earth his sons … three great snow mountains; Multnomah the warrior (Mt. Rainier); Klickitat the totem-maker (Mt. Adams); and Wyeast the singer (Mt. Hood).  All was peaceful until beautiful Squaw Mountain moved into a small valley in between Klickitat and Wyeast.

Squaw Mountain loved Wyeast, but thought it fun to flirt with Klickitat, the big, good-natured brother.  Soon a rivalry sprang up between the two brothers over Squaw Mountain.  They argued, growled, stomped their feet, spat ashes and belched clouds of black smoke.  Each hurled white-hot rocks, setting fire to the forests and driving the people into hiding.  Finally, they threw so many stones onto the Bridge of the Gods and shook the earth so hard that the stone bridge broke in the middle and fell in the river, causing a series of huge rapids.

Klickitat won the fight over Squaw Mountain and Wyeast admitted defeat.  This was a severe blow to Squaw Mountain as she loved Wyeast.  Though she took her place by Klickitat, her heart was broken, and she sank into a permanent deep sleep.  She is known today as Sleeping Beauty and lies where she fell, just west of Mt. Adams (Klickitat).

At one time Klickitat had a high, straight head, like Wyeast.  But Klickitat truly loved Squaw Mountain, and her fate caused him such grief that he dropped his head in shame and has never raised it again.

During the war between the brothers, Loo-Wit the guardian of the Bridge, tried to stop the fight but she failed and fell with it.  The Great Spirit heard of her faithfulness and promised to grant her a wish.  She asked to be made young and beautiful once more.  The Great Spirit granted Loo-Wit her wish, turning her into the most beautiful of all the mountains.  She is now known as the youngest mountain in the Cascades, the beautiful and powerful Mt. St. Helens.

The map above shows the course of the river after the brothers’ battle (after the earthquakes) and after the destruction of the natural bridge.  The RED arrow points to the location of the Cascade Locks which was built in that isthmus between the mainland and that small island.

This was the section of the Columbia River that Lewis and Clark described in their journals as the “great rapids of the Cascades,” a stretch of raging water more than two miles long that was formed by a massive ancient landslide.

And so, when more recent boat traffic increased on the river and safe passage was desired without the need for a land portage around the rapids, the Cascade Locks were built.

 

The doors were 40 feet tall … and so the hinges on each side of the doors were too.

The photo above shows the completed Cascade Locks with two commercial boats heading down-river, having just entered the locks from upriver.  You can see the upper lock doors are closed behind the boats.  The water would now be pumped out until the water level is lowered to be even with the water level on the lower side of the locks, then the lower doors would open and the boats would depart, continuing their journey down river.

But today, the water is all one level and the Cascade Locks are not needed!  The completion of Bonneville Dam in 1938 tamed the great rapids forever and turned the river above the dam into pretty much a magnificent lake.  The water level remains constant and is the same on the upriver side of the Cascade Locks as it is on the downriver side.  Boats simply now go around the far side of that island.  The Cascade Locks has become a tourist destination.

Ah, but a destination not just for tourists!  While I was standing there contemplating all of this information, I heard whooshing and squawking and felt the rush of air on my face.  A gaggle of Geese was flying in!

 

Maybe two or three gaggles!

The Geese seemed to love having me photograph them and posed ever so nicely.

 

But eventually they tired of all that nonsense.  The Goose on the right is leaving, the one next to that one has stuck its head underwater looking for anything interesting at all, the next one is turning its back on me, and the fourth one (on the left) is definitely telling me she’s done with me.

Ok, I can take the hint.

It was time to jump in my big white truck and head back to Towhee the Trailer for lunch!

More information about the Cascade Locks can be found online at Wikipedia and at Oregon Tourism.