The Elowah Report

[Michael13]

The Eagle Creek Fire was started on September 2, 2017, by a 15-year-old boy igniting fireworks during a burn ban. The fire burned 50,000 acres, and burned for three months, before being declared completely contained. The drama at McCord Creek continued a few short years after the fire when the west cliff wall of the Elowah Falls amphitheater collapsed in the winter of 2021. Today I went for a hike there.

This used to be my favorite short hike in the gorge! A lovely wooded walk on the trail, with a bit of up and down, a few switchbacks, and the reward of beautiful Elowah Falls at the end. Just under 2 miles round trip, and the scenery was awesome. Hike it early morning and the experience was as good as it gets for a Gorge Waterfall hike. That was then. The photos below compare views from 2016 and today.

Near the start of the trail, heading up.

The trail has a few washed out sections in the switchbacks before the falls. Kinda sketchy if you're alone, or without hiking poles to help balance in these areas. Luckily, I could use my tripod to help me through. I wouldn't want to go there again until it has been repaired. I'm surprised there was no warning at the trailhead, considering this was considered a family friendly hike before. (Don't know if repairs are planned)

At Elowah Falls, in the bowl formed by the 250 foot cliffs.

The footbridge was still there! The handrails missing and totally unattached to the rock anchors that held it before. The west side of the rock wall had collapsed and now there is a very loose scree slope from the west side to all the way across the creek! The creek flows under these rocks that you can now walk across. Weird feeling seeing the water flowing in little cracks in the piles of rocks just under your feet. I imagine this will take years or longer to settle out. The creek drops abruptly 15 feet just below the bridge now. You'll need a rope or rock climbing skills to get at creek level now for those photos with a creek foreground that used to be possible. However, so much loose rock has filled the bowl and creek bed that it obstructs those views now. Game over.

On the bright side, there were many wild flowers present throughout the hike, and since I started very early (5am), I had the entire place to myself for the three hours I spent there. On the downside, since the trees are mostly gone or bare, you can now hear road noise from I-84 even back at the base of the falls. Before the sound of falling water was all you heard. And the highway is also visible now for the first half of the hike since the forest canopy is gone.

I know it will recover over time, but for now some good memories and old photos are all I have.

 

[AlanLichty]

Wow - I have shot this basalt bowl several times from the air using my drone since the fire but have not hiked in like you did. There is a trail and footbridge down by the freeway that I have been using as a launch point since the original hiking trail was listed as being pretty sketchy as you describe where the trail drops down into the bowl. You just confirmed what I suspected was the place where hiking alone could be hazardous at the switchbacks.

There is more of the bridge than I expected to see given the views I have had from the air but the collapse of the west wall of the bowl really changed the topography below the falls. Your second view comparison really makes it clear just how much of the west wall collapsed. I didn't have aerial imagery from before the fire to compare with what I have been seeing with my drones so that wasn't entirely clear to me before this set of images.

It never used to be true but there is a brief window of visibility of the falls themselves from the freeway in the westbound lanes since the McCord Creek bed itself was left as almost bare rock heading downstream from the view you show in the 2025 image in the third set of images all the way to the freeway. Before the fire I was always under the impression that the creek path from the falls to the freeway was much farther than it really turns out to be once you strip out all of the vegetation.

Thanks for wandering up the trail and posting this report. I haven't been able to bring myself to do that given the reports I have read since the fire. Sadly you just confirmed my worst fears about how bad the damage really was here.

 

[MonikaC]

That's a great report. I do have a suggestion: when talking about something smaller than a national park, maybe tell us what state it's located in......?
BTW, was the 15-yr old charged?

 

[AlanLichty]

That's a great report. I do have a suggestion: when talking about something smaller than a national park, maybe tell us what state it's located in......?
BTW, was the 15-yr old charged?

Elowah Falls trail is located in the Columbia River Gorge in what is called the John B. Yeon State Scenic Corridor, Oregon. The 15 year old from Battleground Washington started the fire with some fireworks tossed from a cliff along the Eagle Creek Trail was charged and his parents did have to face a fine although nowhere near the actual cost of what the Eagle Creek Wildfire caused.

 

[MonikaC]

Elowah Falls trail is located in the Columbia River Gorge in what is called the John B. Yeon State Scenic Corridor, Oregon. The 15 year old from Battleground Washington started the fire with some fireworks tossed from a cliff along the Eagle Creek Trail was charged and his parents did have to face a fine although nowhere near the actual cost of what the Eagle Creek Wildfire caused.

Yeah, from reading your response, I figured it was the Columbia River Gorge. I hope the kid had to do some community service educating others.

 

[AlanLichty]

Yeah, from reading your response, I figured it was the Columbia River Gorge. I hope the kid had to do some community service educating others.

It wasn't just a slap on the wrist and the kid/family have been publicly exposed to the very unhappy population of the Portland/Vancouver metro area. He won't be forgiven soon and might be better off living somewhere else.

 

[Michael13]

That's a great report. I do have a suggestion: when talking about something smaller than a national park, maybe tell us what state it's located in......?
BTW, was the 15-yr old charged?

Sorry for omitting that. Elowah Falls is on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge.

The teen was sentenced in February 2018 to five years of probation and 1,920 hours of community service with the U.S. Forest Service. He also was ordered to write apology letters to 152 people trapped on the Eagle Creek trail because of the spreading flames, the city of Cascade Locks, the Forest Service, Oregon State Parks, the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission and many others.

On May 21, 2018, a judge ordered the 15-year old to pay more than $36 million in restitution, which includes more than $21 million on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service, $12.5 million to the Oregon Department of Transportation, more than $1.6 million to the Oregon State Fire Marshal, more than $1 million to Union Pacific Railroad and varying amounts to Oregon State Parks, Allstate Insurance and a woman who lost her home in the fire. The judge ruled the teenager could set up a payment plan, which could be halted without paying the fine in full after 10 years, as long as he completed his five years of probation and did not commit any other crimes.

I doubt he will come up with the $36M payments unless he becomes a YouTube star.

 

[Trent Watts]

Oh my. So many tragedies all from one moment of carelessness. This is such an interesting story. Thanks so much for posting it and all the responses.

 

[JimFox]

Thanks Michael for this. I had made a comment a while back to Alan wondering how the gorge was recovering from the fires, so I really appreciated your report and the before and current photos of it. It is a bit surprising that the trail is as bad in a few spots like it is. It's at a point where that should get repaired before it gets worse. Unless their goal is to let it disintegrate to reduce traffic back there? The problem is people will start getting hurt pretty soon from falling.

And the difference is much more than I thought it would be. I had thought that the forest would have recovered more, but it looks like it might take 50 or 60 years to get back to how it looked prior to the fire.