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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1920)
SECTION SIX Pages 1 to 14 Automobiles, Road Trips and Northwest Highway News VOL. xxxix. PORTLAND, OREGON, SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 1, 1920 NO. 31 UP THE PICTURESQUE NORTH BANK HIGHWAY tO WHITE SALMON Except for Rough Stretch Between "Vancouver, and Camas, Hupmobile Scout Car Finds This Road Across River From Our Own Columbia River. Highway in Fine Condition for Touring. re 5- s Xi' f!j ... : . i: ! 55 v a a- .- .. S C- 'iN,1" MM - ..5'-. Mis. r- t KM.vO W MNta r t x.-T MBit j :-iK.m: mV. -l V- Kj(, fcA,vvf '.-.vv"l' : Ni..v -:v, s-" ;.i..;;vA:i.!. w-wii-.. '.iriw i ' IW.IWI I mil mi ,i nmwwMWMWII .lflWBWWfitWjB:.riBgrai.i .MlNlgl.l , A.T.WMflMMIrifrwiq ,1 I. 4:- 5 r- vjr - I v X -T iibwii i n JL ??JZ-srT jy JZ? -ZrZz -rfjrjr-Tjr wy S-Zycfy S BY Li. H. GREGORY. ON THB north side of the Co lumbia river, paralleling on the v-, tYashtrigrton shore the Columbia river hiRhway of Oregc. there came Into being: a year agro a new scenic highway, the fruit of many years of planning and toil agrainst financial odds and the physical handicaps of road huildins through mountain coun try. This road, the North Bank high way, extending from Vancouver through Camas, Washougal. Ska mania. Stevenson. Carson, Cook's and Underwood to White Salmon, Wash., ta a link of the longer Evergreen highway. It was built largely through the public spirit and sacrifice of the peo ple of mountainous and sparsely set tled Skamania county, as a sister loop road to the Columbia river high way, the purpose being that tourists might go up one highway and down the other and thereby gain the full est realization of the scenic mag nificence of the Columbia river gorge. THia beautiful road, the .North Bank highway, is today still com paratively little known and little traveled, even by the people of Port land. On a trip the writer made over it last Saturday in a Hupmobile car with Frit Dean, Hupmobile salesman for the Manley Auto company, we met scarcely a dozen cars on the highway proper in the course of the day. To some extent this year, that is due to gasoline shortage, but more to the fact that we are becoming a race of pavement drivers. The rough and ready motorist of the old school who stopped at no road up which horse, mule or man on foot could go, who rejoiced more at the occasional feel of fine gravel under the wheels than at pavement, seems to be giving way in this era of paved highways to a timorous creature who thinks himself out of luck if his wheels ever leave pave ment. But this North Bank highway de serves to be better known and more traveled. It is as truly a road of 10.000 wonders as the Columbia river highway. And not of the same 10,000 wonders either, for every vista, every spectacle, every mountain and river scene along it is different from those viewed from the other side. Oregon Falla Ik View. Indeed, if ' you would know the Co lumbia river highway, you must travel also the North Bank highway. From it you obtain a view of -the Oregon side of the river not possible to get from the Oregon highway it self. In addition to the . spectacles on its own rugged side of the stream, it presents a view of Wahkeena falls, of Multnomah falls, of Horsetail falls, even of Mitchell s point tunnel. Where the Columbia riverehighway passes by the foot of Wahkeena, Multnomah and Horsetail falls, and the traveler looks up in awe at the descending torrents and wonders whence they come, from the Wash ington road across the river he sees I not only the falls, but above them the araws ana canyons aown wnich they flow to the jump-off point; see3 their very sources, almost, back in the timbered . ridges; sees the high summits of the peaks lining the Ore gon side, and the cliffs as they were chiseled off by. glacier and stream action, leaving the present hanging valleys over which the many water falls now tumble. Mitchell's point tunnel by this road he sees from an elevation where the North Bank highway has climbed to startling heights up the sides of its own mountains; so high that the rock t windows in the tunnel look like tiny' pin points while little skurrying toy ; cars run into it and out again. And this same vista includes a view as grand as that front-Crown Point, ana from even higher elevation, far up river and far down-river, and across over the sloping bench of the Hood River valley and its orchards, to Mount Hood. . Slclrta Beacon Rock. , But this is only a part, a small part, of the highway story. It has its own attractions by the hundred, not visible, or only partly so, from the Oregon highway. It half circles and passes at the U E III 1 1? 1 11 p M 3 foot of Beacon Rock, the basalt hump that Lewis and Clark passed and named 115 years ago. Beacon Rock is to be seen from the Oregon side, to be sure, but not in close-up per spective. It towers' jrast and tre mendous frontalis road beside it, the up the gorge of the Little White Sal mon from Cook's which this highway makes. The climb starts from the station at Cook's and continues for three miles on a grade of 6 to 8 per cent, it is not a straignt cnmc The country doesn't run that way. There is a crook in the road, or two crooks, or even three crooks every hundred feet or so, and these crooks are built exactly along the lines of a shepherd's crook. They arj hair pins and tlfjn some. The road swings around tnem so snarpiy mat a cut would seem to need hinges. But the curves are wider tnan tney iooic ana you get around without difficulty. lTp the Little White Salmon. For three miles it climbs, coming out now and then on tne edges of .the gorge. Presently it turns into the side of the main gorge of the Little White Salmon, a wild stream here out of sight it is so far below, and acreened besides by big trees grow ing on the side of the mountain. Now the road becomes less wild, levels down more, and before you know it, is on the upper bench of the Little White Salmon valley, two or three milea back from the Columbia. This mention of hairpin turns and enrAH so deen vou don't see the trra nMdnt scare' out timid. driv ers. Even the all-pavement type of driver could hardly get oit--tne rcaa .i... n tried to. But hershould re- h.r trv sound the horn sharply before rounding turns . and to take ..ntinuslv. The road is vastly better than what, Is ordinarily called mountain roai-built with no grade of more thanks per cent, and the Hup nrnhii. ollnVbed it all the way with a a a a in hftrh Rear. In wet weather the grade might be . muU muddy, for this is one of the few sections of the North Bank high way that by now has not been sur faced with gravel or macadam. Some of this climb has rock bottom, but most of it se-ims to be dirt with nat ural rock in it. The whole thing will be surfaced probably with gravel in nnnther vear, To list the sights of this highway and describe them would be to write a book almost as micK jam one ae criotive of the Columbia river high wav. They are, in fact, two works of more so as..tt rises right out of the ,ame material, with this differ ground like the walls of a building. I ence at present the Columbia river And there is the spectacular climb highway, is tae completed work, the North Bank highway still in some re spects is in crude form. It is not yet paved, like the Columbia river high way, but It has miles or beautuui gravel or macadam road; it has wooden bridges where the Columbia river highway has concrete spans. All that in time will come. As to road conditions. They are good, even fine, over most of it. So much better than a year ago that there is no comparison. The hardest part of the highway drive at present, in fact, is that be tween Vancouver and Camas, Wash.. and this is really not the highway at 11, but only approach to it. What might be termed the highway proper tarts at Cape Horn and from there continues to White Salmon. With few short exceptions, -all this is in not only geod, but in first-class condition. W'hat makes tho going disagree able just now between Vancouver and Camas is that it is all over detour road, while jthe main river road is beine- paved.1 People of Camas for some time .have been uttering loud cries as to the condition of the "back road" over -which travel into that tqwn ttri:"Vancouver must be routed. -and they have some justification for their protests. Bad Road In Clarke County. So far as getting over it is con cerned, it is passable enough. You reach this road by driving through the army post from Eighth street, in Vancouver. For six to eight miles it is fair enough, except that it is all broken macadam and jolty, but then comes a section so rough it jars you from the teeth down. From the looks of things no work has been done on this section binne macadam was first invented, thoi-gh this may be slightly overdrawn. From Camas, at mileage 23.7, to WaFhoueal, mileage 26.5, broken macadam, but not bad going. From there on up the Washongal river the .road is very fair to Cape Horn, thence in fine condition almost to Skamania, at mileage 47.5.- Part of this section 'was in poor condition last year, but now It is all macadam or gravel and good. There is abou,t two and a half miles of dirt road with Skamania as a center, but it, too, is much better than a year ago. And from there to Cook's, where the climb begins, perfect gravel road. Incidentally, a drive over the North iCgacluded fin Page -. Column 1.)
