Easing Back Into It

It’s been about a month since we hiked last–and since I threw my back out. 🙁 We both had Friday off from work and decided to take Bella for an easy hike after breakfast. I chose Horsetail Falls Loop. It’s less than 3 miles and not a ton of elevation climb. This is actually the very first hike Michael and I did when we started dating. I remember when we were just friends thinking, we don’t have much in common–I don’t think I could ever date this guy. I remember him saying he hated hiking. 🙂 Which was funny because he’d never done it before! So when we did start dating, I convinced him to give it a try and this is the hike we did. I remember a stranger on the trail taking this photo of us on my flip phone:

And then Friday’s photo, 7.5 years later:

Funny how things change. And how pre-conceived notions change.

It was kind of a cool morning. We got out to The Gorge and it was just under 60 degrees. It definitely felt like Fall was approaching. Some of the leaves were starting to turn, there were orange and brown leaves on the trail and there was a foggy morning mist.

There is a very scenic viewpoint right at the trailhead, which is nice for photos. When dogs cooperate…. 😛

Bella was a bit excited to be back hiking in the woods after almost a month off! I wore a hat for a first part of the hike because it was so chilly out! Glad I didn’t wear shorts, either. Although it did warm up nicely when the sun poked through the clouds.

Isn’t the waterfall gorgeous? The second picture looks like a Fall postcard.

The trail started going up hill kind of steeply. The trail also had a lot of rocks on it. It made it difficult at times and you had to watch your step. I almost twisted my ankles a few times. Thankfully my hiking boots are tall and have good ankle support.

All of these Gorge hikes near Multnomah Falls connect with each other so you could in theory just keep hiking. Horsetail Falls is part of Oneonta Gorge so you can make it longer than the 2.6 mile loop if you wanted to.

After some steep switch backs that got my heart pounding, the trail leveled off a bit and there were some clearings with pretty viewpoints of The Gorge and the river.

The day was shaping up nicely! We continued on the trail and quickly came to Horsetail Falls. It’s such a pretty discovery in the forest!

It’s cool because you can walk underneath the Falls too!

After walking under the waterfall, the trail went up hill again for a bit and then leveled out. There were more viewpoints of the Gorge and then the trail went through the woods for a bit before going back down. There was a bridge amongst the trees.

As we got closer to the bridge I saw this sign:

Um YIKES! Sooo Bella is not a fan of bridges. She freaks out and refuses to cross them. Usually I have to walk first and coax her across the bridge with Michael behind her. Since we couldn’t do that I took the leash and Bella and I tried to walk across together. She was not happy! She crouched down real low and didn’t want to walk. I said “Come on Bella!! Let’s go!” and started to walk fast. She was crouched down and kind of Army-crawled across the bridge. It was so funny.

The above photo was a small waterfall right next to the bridge. We hiked up another hill on the other side of the bridge and came to a fork in the trail.

The rest of the hike was trail through the woods going gently downhill and then winding around towards the old highway. The trail claims to be a loop but about 1/2 a mile of it is on the road to get back to the Horsetail Falls Trailhead. Luckily it wasn’t a busy traffic day and there was a large enough shoulder to walk safely. Some of the Old Highway is NOT safe to walk on.

There was a cool tunnel carved out of the rock that we walked under to get back to the trailhead. We ate our sandwiches for lunch and then headed back home.

I burned 379 calories and we hiked around 3 miles. It was a good, fairly gentle hike to ease back into hiking after a break. And it was a nice walk down memory lane. 🙂