This past weekend we decided to venture over the Washington side of the Gorge, so first we went for a hike up Wind Mountain, a beautiful, cinder cone just west of Dog Mountain. The trail is not well maintained, in fact some parts are a little scary. Not plunge to your death scary, but certainly slide down a hillside bouncing off of bushes and trees scary. Fortunately, that didn't happen. It is also a fairly steep trail, but boy the views at the top are well worth the hike. It is only about a mile and a quarter out, but, man, it definitely got the heart pumping and we had to rest a couple of times. The fact that it was pushing 90 degrees out didn't really help matters either. From the top you get a spectacular view both up and down the Columbia. Just stellar!
The hike down is easy, except for the parts where you feel like you might slide off of the trail and tumble down the slope, but those parts are mostly mental as the actual hiking was fairly easy.
Now, Panther Creek Falls isn't a hike at all. In fact, you can drive within a couple of hundred yards of them. They are way up a paved Forest Service road that doesn't really go anywhere which is probably why the are not well know and why they were fairly empty on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the summer. The Northwest is chock full of spectacular falls, but so far, Panther Creek might take the cake, at least of the ones that we have seen. There is viewing platform that juts off to the side of the falls, about ¾ of the way up the falls which affords you an incredible view of the falls and one of the creeks that flow into it. It is a short walk from the parking area. Hell, you could walk it in heels if you were that type.
