Oregon: 150 Years in 2009. (4 / 8) A report conducted in July 2008 (Text and photos by Bernard Jacqmin)
The Columbia River
Historically, of course, one might say, the main access road to Oregon from the east is a river. A liquid highway! Majestic and powerful: The Columbia River. Native memory, moreover, we never knew that this "road" to cross the country from east to west, from the Rockies to the Great Ocean. Memory of explorers and settlers, the breakthrough of nearly 2000 miles across the country is nothing less than the royal way-at least its final stretch, to win the West. The saga of Lewis and Clark on this subject is exemplary. Mandated
by President Jefferson, officers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark will be charged in 1804 to explore the territories west of the Mississippi. (....) Territories which were previously deemed "incognitae terrae." Apart from a few adventurers, sailors and a few handfuls of seasoned trappers notably from Canada, one in fact had even practiced this country. The adventure of Lewis and Clark begin Wood River (Illinois) in May of 1804 in order to reach the Pacific 18 months later. The fitted consists of about thirty men will only fit 2 years, 4 months and 10 days later after traveling over 8,000 miles on foot, horseback, boat, including taking over the Columbia River until at Pacific and found in the wake Fort Clatsop, site of the present city of Astoria. Incredible detail, taking into consideration the dangers and difficulties Cross: one person will die in this epic saga. 
This expedition will mark the beginning of the biggest flow of America has ever known. The valuable information gathered by the two explorers will ignite the imagination of the young nation and nurture hope for hundreds of thousands of people in search of a better future and especially to land "good price". From 1840 and for nearly 40 years that are no less than 400,000 adventurers who will travel which, henceforth, be called the Oregon Trail. Requiring an adventure in the best case, six months from the banks of the Mississippi River with rustic chuckwagon towed by oxen across Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and then Oregon from which some are spread to California and Washington. privileged witness This unprecedented exodus, writer Mark Twain
in his book "A tough" in 1861 described these caravans when they are not even halfway: "Clothes and the poor sad face, difficulty walking and driving their herd of cows, there were dozens of men, women and children who walked like that, day after day for eight weeks to go through endless thousand two hundred eighty-four miles! They were dusty and unkempt, bare-headed and ragged, they looked so tired! ... "
If the morphology of the valley of the Columbia River has indeed undergone tremendous changes since then "heroic"-Today, with 14 dams on its course and 150 throughout its basin, the Columbia River is the river with the most hydro-North America Valley of the Columbia River remains more than ever a land where the term "wild" keeps meaning. And it's not that contradict the salmon as they are still 16 million to back its course every year! 
As soon as one leaves the Higway 84 and as you cross the road tracks along the river, the visitor feels he immediately wrapped, caught one might say, by an exuberant nature, dense and varied in terrain unpredictable. A multitude of trails can melt it and to some extent, to relive the excitement of the early adventurers who had cleared the track.
The spectacular views then follow the tunnels of foliage rustling, the roads in the vast cornice lined glades of ferns. Here and there, the bottom of the canyon, back the tumult of ice streams whose current soon be broken by many vertical drops.
(Next episode 17 / 1 / 10)
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