OREGON

Executive summary by darmansjah

Westward Ho Millennia before Sacagawea ( THE SEEKER – The quiet heroic of Sacagawea no doubt kept the Lewis and Clark expedition 1804-1806 afloat, fed, and safe. The young Shoshone was the wife/and slave of a fur trader hired as an interpreter for the enterprise. On her decision to stay with the party after serendipitously meeting her brother, head of a Shoshone band, author Margaret Talbot argues, “She, too, had been seized with curiosity about where the journey would take her.” -  and crew arrive in the Columbia River Gorge, its course was being altered by lava flows from hundreds of volcano eruptions, eventually orienting it east-west ( unlike most of the world’s canyons ) and setting the stage for the Lewis and Clark party’s epic odyssey to the Pacific and the country’s western expansion. The region’s geological and historical significance is palpable on this series of hikes in and around the gore’s summits, past dozens of towering waterfalls, awesome alpine vistas, and come spring, riotous wildflower displays. With stays at the Columbia River Inn and historic Timberline Lodge. Timberline Tours: “Columbia River Gorge,’ 6 days; $2,300