Samuel Lancaster, the engineer who built the Historic Columbia River Highway between 1913 and 1922, wanted a road that would show off the gorge instead of conquering it, and Troutdale is where it begins. The town sits where the Sandy River meets the Columbia, on the eastern edge of the Portland area, with a tidy main street, an old railroad depot and a hotel that began life as a poor farm. For a rider the gateway is easy: you leave the suburban edges, cross the river, and within a few miles the road starts to climb.
The highway was the first planned scenic road in the country, designed with stone guardrails, arched bridges and viaducts that fit the cliffs. At Crown Point, about 700 feet above the Columbia, Vista House, an octagonal stone building from 1918, serves as an observatory and rest stop, with a view up the gorge that explains why people drive here from across the world. Beyond it, the road threads past waterfalls, among them Latourell, Bridal Veil, Wahkeena and the biggest of all, Multnomah Falls, which drops 620 feet in two tiers and attracts huge crowds. During busy seasons, access to the waterfall corridor can require timed permits, so check before you go.
The road is narrow, curvy and quite slow, with tight bends under the rock and damp patches in the shade, and the sections in the woods can be covered with moss and leaves. Traffic is heavy on summer weekends, so a weekday morning is much better. Mist and fog hang in the gorge in spring and autumn, and the wind that whips through the gorge can surprise you at exposed viewpoints. The Columbia River Gorge is a transition zone, with wet, mossy forest in the west and dry grassland in the east, and the change over a short distance is remarkable.
Troutdale has around sixteen thousand people, with fuel, cafes and bakeries, and the nearby Gresham and Portland have everything else. Pick up supplies before you go, since there are limited stops along the old road, and stop for a pastry in one of the villages. Spring, with waterfalls at full flow, and early autumn are the best seasons.