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.
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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
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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.)