Miles' Seven Columbia Crossings

In my last post, I showed you some of the animals from our trip, and it seems like some of you need help identifying them. So I'm going to give you a clue. All of them live along our route mapped below:



We covered over 2100 miles (but we all know who the best Miles is), and crossed the Columbia River seven times!

Help me to count the crossings:

1. Between Portland and Vancouver, we got a great view of Mt. Hood behind the above-flood-stage Columbia, before stopping at Fort Vancouver to visit Maya Lin's "Land Bridge" (not pictured), one of three Confluence Project sites we visited:



2: In Revelstoke Salmon Arm, BC, it was cold and overcast on the Trans-Canada Highway, under which the river flows North to South:



3: It was still overcast in Golden, BC, where the river oddly flows South to North (the Columbia is in the background; the Kicking Horse River is in the foreground):



4: Next, we took a trip to the headwaters of the Columbia River, coincidentally named "Columbia Lake," the Southern marshes of which are only a couple kilometers (since they're Canadian, I guess they should be called "kilometres") across the town of Canal Flats away from the Kootenay River, which finally flows into the Columbia 300 miles later (in Canada, but mostly through the US, so I can measure in miles -- the best unit I know)!





5: We crossed the river again on the way back to Banff:



6: It was a couple days later when we visited Maya Lin's "Story Circles" at Sacagewea State Park at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. The Columbia is pictured oddly flowing West to East (right to left), and the Snake is on the left of the photo:



7: Finally, we crossed the Columbia a final time and headed back to Portland on the Oregon side of the river, stopping at Celilo (née Falls, and soon to be the site of another Maya Lin project) for the sunset:



More posts about the trip coming soon (do you like how I'm breaking them up so it doesn't take me forever to post something new?). I'll even share some photos of my polite Canadian smile.

☺