Legend of The Bridge of The Gods
Subject to Storytellers Fancy
For these and asundered reasons, many local residents feel the names should revert back to the Indian ones, just as Mt. McKinley park was recently renamed Denali, for the native "Great One".
There is another question to be disputed. Did the 1980 eruption of Loowit have something to do with a sequel in a never ending drama? A curious fact is that a US Geological Survey Bulletin issued in the years before St. Helens eruption that blasted 2,300 feet off the summit, considered Mt. Hood to be to most likely to have volcanic activity in the near future. The still-steaming lava dome of Crater Rock on Hood was created only 250 years ago, and light gray pumice fragments where being scattered by intermittent eruptions up until the 1860’s.
Underlying the legends lie an impressive number of geologic features that confirm that there actually was a bridge that fell down. No, not something carved out of sandstone as in Arches National Monument in Moab Utah. It really was more of a rock dam, that kept being undercut by the current sweeping through.
The Columbia River Gorge walls are made up of basalt flows 1,500 feet thick, laying on top or an older, more easily eroded layers, which itself are tilted to the south. Possibly triggered by an earthquake during the Holocene time ( 10,000 to 12,000 years ago) there was a series of events that led to an ice age flood racing through the river canyon. When the softer strata on Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak was washed away, the top heavy basalt came sliding down to create a dam over 200 feet high, until this too was destroyed by huge earthquakes associated with the volcanoes eruptions in circa 1500 -1650 AD. That was the "Bridge of the Gods."
Being that 300 plus years in geologic time is just seconds in the history of the world, perhaps you had better visit "Our Lady" before she decides that being a "sleeping beauty" is boring. In this age of female liberation, who knows what could happen next? The End?
Subject to Storytellers Fancy
For these and asundered reasons, many local residents feel the names should revert back to the Indian ones, just as Mt. McKinley park was recently renamed Denali, for the native "Great One".
There is another question to be disputed. Did the 1980 eruption of Loowit have something to do with a sequel in a never ending drama? A curious fact is that a US Geological Survey Bulletin issued in the years before St. Helens eruption that blasted 2,300 feet off the summit, considered Mt. Hood to be to most likely to have volcanic activity in the near future. The still-steaming lava dome of Crater Rock on Hood was created only 250 years ago, and light gray pumice fragments where being scattered by intermittent eruptions up until the 1860’s.
Underlying the legends lie an impressive number of geologic features that confirm that there actually was a bridge that fell down. No, not something carved out of sandstone as in Arches National Monument in Moab Utah. It really was more of a rock dam, that kept being undercut by the current sweeping through.
The Columbia River Gorge walls are made up of basalt flows 1,500 feet thick, laying on top or an older, more easily eroded layers, which itself are tilted to the south. Possibly triggered by an earthquake during the Holocene time ( 10,000 to 12,000 years ago) there was a series of events that led to an ice age flood racing through the river canyon. When the softer strata on Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak was washed away, the top heavy basalt came sliding down to create a dam over 200 feet high, until this too was destroyed by huge earthquakes associated with the volcanoes eruptions in circa 1500 -1650 AD. That was the "Bridge of the Gods."
Being that 300 plus years in geologic time is just seconds in the history of the world, perhaps you had better visit "Our Lady" before she decides that being a "sleeping beauty" is boring. In this age of female liberation, who knows what could happen next? The End?
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