A 200-mile trail loop aims to connect towns and communities across the Columbia Gorge

The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area is the largest in the U.S., covering more than 80 miles of forest, hills and bluffs in Oregon and southwest Washington. Friends of the Columbia Gorge is a conservation nonprofit that was instrumental in getting the federal government to declare the region a National Scenic Area 40 years ago, and has worked to protect its scenic resources which draw roughly 2 million people a year to recreate there. The organization is also spearheading an ambitious effort to connect communities throughout the gorge in a 200-mile trail loop. The Gorge Towns to Trails initiative aims to “promote alternative transportation options,” reduce congestion at popular trailheads and introduce hikers to less-visited areas of the gorge.

Gorge Towns to Trails project manager Renée Tkach joins us to walk a bit of the trail and talk about its progress so far. D’na Chase, a Cherokee Nation tribal member and land trustee with Friends of the Columbia Gorge, also shares her vision for engaging the gorge’s many Indigenous communities in projects like Towns to Trails.

Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We’re going to end our week in The Dalles today with a conversation about an ambitious Gorge-wide project. It’s a 200-mile loop called the Gorge Towns to Trails project. It aims to create a continuous walking route through all of the towns on either side of the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Natural Area. More than anyone, Renée Tkach has been the driving force to make this happen. She’s the Gorge Towns toTrails project manager for the nonprofit Friends of the Columbia Gorge. We met up yesterday at a trailhead near the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum.

The most grandiose description of the project is to make the Gorge a world class trekking destination. So I asked Renée what that would actually mean.

Renée Tkach: Around the world you have these trekking opportunities that go from town to town and we really don’t have anything like that here in the United States. Here in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, we had this opportunity to look at all the public lands that had come into place over the last 40 years since the Scenic Act, and with all those public lands in place it created this opportunity to look at: Could we connect towns to towns? And the reality was yes, we could. We’ve had over 40,000 acres go from private to public lands, especially in this region between Hood River and The Dalles on the Oregon side and quite a few on the Washington side. And within the National Scenic Area Management Plan, one of the goals for recreational uses is actually to create a trail that wraps around the Columbia River Gorge.

Miller: So the idea for this is not new. Is it built into the 40-year old management plan or more recent version of it?

Tkach: No, it was actually built into the original management plan that was instituted in 1986.

Miller: When you say trekking, what does that mean? You said that in other places around the world this exists but not really in the US. So what exactly would somebody do if this dream fully comes to fruition?

Tkach: Well, each of the towns in the Gorge are placed between 15 and 22 miles apart. Rather than going into the back country where you’ve got a big backpack, you’re out in the woods for days, and you don’t see restaurants or lodging or a comfortable place to sleep, the front country experience of the trekking is where you’re actually hiking from town to town, sleeping in a lodging facility, eating the local foods, experiencing the local culture, sipping the local beverages–which are plentiful out here–and really immersing yourself in the Columbia River Gorge, which isn’t a wild place.

Miller: So you wouldn’t have a big day pack, but just a day pack. You’d wake up in the morning at some motel, hotel or B&B or whatever, eat breakfast and then walk. And then 15 or 20 miles later you get somewhere you can have local cider, beer or wine or whatever, kombucha, sleep, wake up and do the same thing?

Tkach: Exactly. And this is something around the world you’re seeing all over the place. You have the Wales Trail in Wales, you have the Camino de Santiago that goes from town to town and it’s a pilgrimage trek. These are examples that we’re bringing in to incorporate here, but it’s not just a vision to support tourism. It’s also to help the locals be able to access the public lands around them, too, and possibly make their own trek around the Gorge.

Miller: What don’t locals, say, somebody in The Dalles, what don’t they currently have access to here?

Tkach: Well, in The Dalles, it’s surrounded primarily by private lands, so the access to the public lands is really hard to walk to from the downtown of The Dalles into the public lands. So Mt. Ulka, what we are looking at right now, this potential new trail that is in motion to come to life, will be the first dirt trail that’s hitting the public lands between The Dalles and Mosier.

Miller: So we’re right in front of the Discovery Center and Museum right now. Can we call this the trailhead to be?

Tkach: Right. We are at the future trailhead of what will be Mt. Ulka Trail where hopefully one day, with the Gorge Town to Trails, people will be coming through from Hood River to Mosier landing here at the Discovery Center, this incredible world class museum, and then right adjacent to here is The Dalles Riverfront Trail.

Miller: Should we start walking in that direction?

Tkach: Let’s go check it out.

Miller: So the trail to Mt. Ulka that doesn’t exist yet.

Tkach: Correct.

Miller: So what’s it going to take just for that one piece to come together?

Tkach: This has been years and years of planning and process to get to a place where we can actually say that we’ve submitted a land use application to the county. To plan a trail, you don’t just dig a trail. You have to do all kinds of studies. You have to do a wildlife study. You have to do a plant survey and most importantly with those in place, you have to do a cultural resource study to make sure that we’re not significantly impacting cultural resources. That’s also expanding to also taking into account that we’re not damaging where first foods are growing or traditional ceremonial lands of the tribes. Once we get all those in place, we’re also engaging with the community about what they want? What does the city of The Dalles want? And the city of The Dalles actually created a resolution of support about eight years ago supporting the concept of not only the Mt. Ulka Trail, but the larger concept of Gorge Town to Trails.

Miller: Have those kinds of votes of support–whether at the city level or say the county level Washington County or Sherman or Hood river or whatever–been hard to come by in more conservative places among more conservative county commissioners? Has it been a challenge for you to sell this concept?

Tkach: In the beginning, I think there was a lot of concern about what is the benefit to the county and what’s in it for us? And oftentimes recreation can be seen as a burden to counties.

Miller: Because you’re taking land out of production?

Tkach: No, mostly the impacts of the people coming to use them. So search and rescue comes out of county coffers. Parking issues such as people illegally parking. Safety issues that are happening out there and creating safety issues on roadways.

Miller: There’s a huge parking lot here.

Tkach: There’s a huge parking lot.

Miller: So is that one of the things that you think about as you figure out how this is going to work?

Tkach: Yes.

Miller: There’s already a parking lot in some places. So let’s make the walking trail go through there?

Tkach: Yes. As well as celebrating infrastructure that’s already in place. So we have a parking lot–a great resource for a trailhead–but we also have this really incredible museum that a lot of people don’t even know about. So if you put a trailhead here then you instantly have this, “wow, I’m coming to hike this trail, maybe I’ll go check out this museum.” And that’s what we’re looking at when we’re talking to counties and cities. I again ask, “what do you want? How do you want this trail to celebrate what you already have again?”

We’re about ready to get on the existing trail, The Dalles Riverfront Trail.

Miller: Which is nine miles along the river.

Tkach: It’s nine miles. It goes all the way to what we call the Shilo Inn ending over by….

Miller: (laughter) The historical Shilo Inn ending?

Tkach: Yes. But the intention when they started this project was that it would connect the Discovery Center to The Dalles Dam. And that project was stopped because the route went through traditional tribal lands and fishing access. And so it ended there. When we had the conversations with the county, the city and the people who live even between here and outside of the city area; they talked about connecting into what we already have. And that really played into what that Gorge Towns to Trails concept was, which is that we don’t have Mt. Ulka just ending in a parking lot. We end at what is at the beginning of a Riverfront Trail that lands you right into downtown The Dalles.

Miller: So what’s the percentage, if you can boil it down, of what actually exists? And we are now on this trail. What percentage of the 200-miles is fully in place right now?

Tkach: So 45% of the trails are already in place and that’s growing every day because we look at the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail as part of this vision, as well as other new trails that are coming to life since we kicked this vision off, 14 years ago. And so 45% of the trails are in place and 80% of the land is in place to host a trail.

Miller: Land is in place, meaning it’s now in some kind of public hands?

Tkach: Correct.

Miller: Is there an idea of where the trail could go on that land?

Tkach: There’s a high level concept, maybe a 30,000 ft. elevation.

Miller: Okay, so in other words, there’s still a lot that has to be done.

Tkach: Yes, there’s a lot that has to be done.

Miller: Is more of what’s finished on the Oregon side than on the Washington side.

Tkach: Yeah, the Oregon side is well on its way and in fact, I think that I will see a full connection to The Dalles in my lifetime.

Miller: When you say to The Dalles, [is that] from Troutdale?

Tkach: From Troutdale, yes.

Miller: Okay. And so is that the way Oregonians and Washingtonians or people in New Zealand should think about this, in pieces? And what do you mean by your lifetime? When you’re in your nineties or when you’re in your sixties?

Tkach: I think so. I think in the next 20 years we will see a full connection from Troutdale to The Dalles.

When trails are to be built on public lands, those go into the hands of those public land managers. Where Friends of the Columbia Gorge has been building these connector trails, have been completely on our land trust properties. So Mt. Ulka, which will connect into The Dalles, is actually on one of Friends of the Columbia Gorge land trust lands. We own over 1,500 acres in the Columbia River Gorge.

We are book-ended in Mosier to the west where there is a trail in place called the Mosier Plateau Trail that we built and completed in 2013. That connected into downtown Mosier, and Mosier was excited about it. And so here we are now moving east and going to do that same type of project here in The Dalles.

Miller: Can you give us a sense for the different communities, stakeholders or partners that you have to be in consultation with to make something like this happen?

Tkach: We first started with the towns, the people that are living here. And it really comes out through the work of doing the surveys for the cultural resources to see where a trail can be appropriately placed to avoid impacting culturally significant areas. In those conversations, it really became apparent that we needed to start conversation with the tribal members of this area and not only around consultation, but also around how we can tell their story. They are the first stewards of the Gorge. We’re starting to recognize the importance of telling that story and the interpretive signage that we are going to be implementing for this project here at Mt. Ulka. And we have a project across the river at the Lyle Cherry Orchard, another Friends of the Columbia Gorge Preserve, where we do have an existing trail system. And right now we’re working on that signage project and we’re engaging with tribal members to incorporate storytelling, poetry and music that they’ll be able to access along the trail through QR codes to really learn the story of the people that were first here.

Miller: One of the phrases that we’ve talked about–and it’s possible that this even came up the last time you were on Think Out Loud–was that some of these places in the Gorge, specifically, are being loved “to death.” That Portlanders and other people from around the world have discovered the majestic beauty here and are coming to all these places, but the “to death” idea is that they’re just they’re coming too much in ways that the area is not prepared for, the trail isn’t prepared for. But what you’re doing is creating a project with the explicit intention of attracting more people and giving people who are here more access to some of these areas. So how do you square those?

Tkach: Good question. It’s true, people are moving to the Portland Metro area because of the lifestyle and its access to these lands. The Gorge is definitely seeing that pressure increasing every year. What’s happening right now is that there are a lot of public lands that don’t have managed trail systems, but yet there’s a trail on them that’s in guidebooks and online that’s actually not an official trail.

Miller: It’s a pathway that people have been using, but it is on private land?

Tkach: It’s on public lands, but it could be routed over sensitive species, cultural resources, and have significant wildlife habitat. What’s been happening over the last 10 to 15 years is that people are seeing these public lands as a way to just start walking and once you start walking it, a path is born. Then that path just gets used and then it gets into guidebooks.

The Gorge Towns to Trails project isn’t about attracting more [people], although a world class tracking system definitely puts the area in that zone where people will come. They’re already coming, but the project is going to create a planned and managed trail system that will avoid impacting those cultural, scenic, natural and cultural resources.

Miller: Right now, if people, whether from the Portland area or somewhere else, are going to come to the Gorge, I don’t think that they would likely say “I want to go to Mosier” or “I want to walk through The Dalles as part of my outdoor experience.” So what you’re doing is changing the routes and the ways people think about being outside here and experiencing the Gorge. What could that mean in terms of economic development and just the life in the many communities that are embedded here?

Tkach: I think a good story that really profiles this is that the town of Mosier, that’s just not very far west of The Dalles of where we’re standing, was a town that couldn’t keep a coffee shop open year round. It would close down in the winter and the shoulder seasons and it would open up in early spring when the wildflowers were blooming. Since the Mosier Plateau Trail was established there, now they have a coffee shop, they have a restaurant, they have food cards and they have a town that is becoming vibrant off of the recreation visitation. That’s not just because of the Mosier Plateau, but it’s also because it’s become a pretty popular bike route on the Historic Columbia River Highway.

Here in The Dalles, It’s not really recognized as a recreation destination, but I think a lot of people don’t understand what’s around here in terms of this Riverfront Trail. It is one of the most beautiful riverfront trails that is paved and it’s for all abilities. We’re on a paved trail here. Now what this will lead to with the future Mt. Ulka Trail will be one of the first trail systems that is more rugged, more of a hiking experience. And when a hiker gets online and notices that “oh gosh, all those trails are packed towards the west side or the traditional places that people go,” they’re going to discover Mt. Ulka and they’re going to discover The Dalles.

There’s a lot of great stuff happening in The Dalles to bring people and get them to stay the night and experience it for a couple of days. I think one thing that I have heard a lot from people in Portland and even in the Gorge, especially during the pandemic when we couldn’t travel, was that they were discovering that you could have these day trips or overnight trips and I had this one friend that said, “I’m just pretending I’m in Europe and I’m going to go to wine country and I’m going to do some wiking, which is wine and hiking, and it feels like Tuscany at times.” So I think there’s been a lot of waking up to what we can do really close by and make it a vacation and discover these little towns and/or bigger towns that really have the opportunity to provide a weekend worth of activities. And Mt. Ulka is part of that Gorge Towns to Trails [which] is really a big part of that economic development through recreation.

Miller: What is a piece of the final loop that you’re most excited about?

Tkach: Absolutely, hands down, connecting Mosier to The Dalles.

Miller: Right here?

Tkach: Right here.

Miller: What about across the river?

Tkach: That’s a tougher nut to crack.

Miller: Why is it tougher?

Tkach: There is not as much continuous public lands on the Washington side.

Miller: So there needs to be real estate acquisition for this to happen.

Tkach: Or there can be recreation easements. We have worked with landowners on recreation easements and in fact, here the Mt. Ulka project actually has a half-mile easement that a private landowner sold to Friends of the Columbia Gorge so that we could connect Mosier to The Dalles to build this Mt. Ulka Trail. So I think it’s going to be a lot of creative solutions as we move forward.

Miller: Okay, so to go back to the potential timeline here, you had said that in 20 years, hopefully people will be able to walk all the way from Troutdale to here in The Dalles? What’s your best guess for when the 200-mile loop will be finished?

Tkach: Hmm. I would say in the next 50 years?

Miller: Okay.

Tkach: That would be a dream. With Gorge Towns to Trails, we broke out into three areas where we felt like we could make a connection in the next 50 years. Those were Hood River to The Dalles, Washougal to Stevenson on the Washington side and Underwood to Lyle on the Washington side. Amongst those, the private land segments are really pretty much prohibitive unless we get into creative solutions and those always arise. I’m constantly surprised, when I think something is an absolute “no,” and then the door opens and an opportunity arises for a connection. That seems to be happening more and more over the last few years. I think people are really excited about this vision. You can see that in the way that these creative solutions around traditional farming lands granting an easement for a trail system.

Miller: An easement meaning that the landowner—a farmer in this case—would maintain ownership, but they would give rights to people to use some piece of their land?

Tkach: Correct.

Miller: Renée Tkach, thanks very much for showing us this small slice of the Gorge. I appreciate it.

Tkach: Thank you so much. This has been my pleasure.

Miller: We turn now to D’na Chase, she’s a land trustee for the Friends of the Columbia Gorge and she hopes to work as a kind of tribal liaison for this project. D’na grew up in the Gorge, but as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, not a Pacific Northwest tribe, I asked her how that affects her relationship to both the land in the area and local Indigenous peoples.

D’na Chase: I grew up here because my grandparents came out here in 1948 from Oklahoma for work and then just never left. My whole family is still here in Hood River or Mosier, spread out a little bit in the Gorge. I think when you’re native, you have this connection with the land. This is the only land that I know. So that common thread is that native people have their connection and spirituality with the land. It’s a common thread, but it’s not to be homogenized. I can’t speak for local tribes here. My goal is to bring local tribes to the table and continue this conversation and add more to the conversation.

Miller: That makes sense. But it also seems complicated the way you’re describing it. What does it mean then to be the tribal liaison for the Town to Trails project as a native person who isn’t native to this land, at least in terms of going back 10,000 years?

Chase: Right.

Miller: You are here and your family’s been here since your grandparents [arrived], but not for 10,000 years.

Chase: Yes. So the part of your question before was about connecting with tribes here.

Miller: Yes.

Chase: So when my kids were little specifically, I would go to NAYA, which is the Native American Youth and Family Association, and I just immersed myself in everything tribal here. You’d see coastal tribes with their totems and they’re different hats and my kids would be oh, that’s Cherokee. No, that’s not Cherokee and being really specific about the tribes that I was getting to know. There’s always stories and that sharing and that’s where you find that common thread that you have as native people.

Miller: Growing up here, how did you think about the nonprofit conservation group that you’re now a trustee for, the Friends of the Columbia River Gorge?

Chase: I didn’t really have a good attitude towards them—I was young when they started this whole thing in the eighties. I think maybe I was just told as a young kid that it’s just land takers or they’re trying to control things and…

Miller: Trying to put a stop to people using the land?

Chase: Yes, building your house if you can’t paint the house the color you want. And so as a young person, I just kind of listen to that. But then making my friendships with people that actually worked there and hearing different sides of the story, I just started to shift, but then I started wondering about the native people. How come we have all this Lewis and Clark stuff here and what are the local tribes saying about that? I just started asking more questions and then the stars aligned and I got this gig as a land trustee for the Friends. It’s like the stars aligned because I can now do this passionate thing about bringing local tribal voices. They should be the one speaking for their land and so that’s my goal. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish.

Miller: In a sense, work yourself out of this role and give space for native tribes from this area.

Chase: Yes. No native person wants this job. I think I drew the short straw. No one wants to be responsible for even remotely trying to speak for a tribe. I can’t even speak for my own tribe. These are just my stories, my feelings and my goals and trying to bring people together so that the right people are sharing their stories, the stories that they can share and the stories that need to be kept sacred.

Miller: What are your hopes for the Towns to Trails project? And then we can talk about your fears.

Chase: My hopes would be that we see a lot more story and get people from native tribes involved at the beginning of this so that they’re actually the leaders of this. They should be the leaders; we should be listening to what they have to say. They have the original instructions on how to live with this land. We should be letting them lead and we should follow. I just talked with Chief Doc Slyter from the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw and they have the Amanda Trail? I’m not sure if you’ve heard of that.

Miller: I have not.

Chase: Their whole journey on that trail is inspirational and now, it took them 20 years to do it, but we need to tell more of the story. I think we need to tell longer stories. There’s more history and culture than just the history of settlement. So I would love to see the idea of learning more about culture than just history.

Miller: Culture, meaning also contemporary culture, life today as opposed to just the past?

Chase: Sure, but I think native people just have that key about what culture here in this land means and it’s not just history. I would love to see the native people getting involved from the beginning and to see some ceremonies on the trails. I’d love to have them lead hikes. And I would love to see the young kids with the elders get out here and explore nature and learn it from their perspective.

Miller: What are your fears or concerns as this project moves forward?

Chase: Progress not done in the right way. We have this horrible history of what happened to native people, but I think that story needs to be told and not in a way that keeps us there. It is just a matter of that being what happened, what can we learn from that? And then how do we use that in the future to move forward so that we’re really thinking about seven generations forward? What are we leaving? What are we learning from those ancestors and the elders that are still alive today? I’m really inspired because I see a lot of young people, 20s, 30-somethings, these tribal kids, adults actually but you know what I mean.

Miller: (laughter) You can call them kids.

Chase: (laughter) Younger than me. They are so good at listening to their elders and they’re hungry for the culture and paying it forward.

Miller: D’na Chase, thanks very much.

Chase: Thank you. It’s been an honor.

Miller: D’na Chase is the land trustee for the Friends of the Columbia River Gorge

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