Members of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. (photo: Sheepscot Creative)
Friends of the Columbia Gorge & Metropolitan Youth Symphony Community Partnership
February 22, 2022
February 22, 2022 FRIENDS OF THE COLUMBIA GORGE PRESS RELEASE Contacts: Allison King, communications director, Metropolitan Youth Symphony | 503.239.4566 | aking@playmys.org (email) Burt Edwards, communications director, Friends of the Columbia Gorge | 971.634.0595 (Office) | 703.861.8237 (Cell) | burt@gorgefriends.org (email) PORTLAND, OR – Symphony Orchestra musicians bring relevant issues to the Newmark Theatre stage March 6 with the world premiere of award-winning […]
Detail from a 2017 composite image: a female harrier glides above Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge. (photographer: Ken Pitts)
Habitat Restoration at Steigerwald
December 8, 2021
By Dan BellLand Trust Director December 8, 2021 When I was fortunate enough to tour the Steigerwald Reconnection Project in August, the place was buzzing with construction equipment. In highly choreographed fashion, dozens and dozens of backhoes, dozers, and dump trucks moved soil around the beloved National Wildlife Refuge. Day after day, truckload after truckload, our partners at the Lower […]
Stewardship volunteers work to remove fencing from Friends of the Columbia Gorge's Cape Horn preserve. (photographer: Sarah Skelly)
Volunteers Steward Through All Seasons
December 8, 2021
By Sarah SkellyVolunteer Coordinator December 8, 2021 In the midst of staff transitions at Friends of the Columbia Gorge and waves of shifting COVID-19 safety protocols, small groups of experienced Friends volunteers have been out in the Gorge keeping pace with the invasive weeds that never seem to take pause. Through spring and summer and during […]
Crews excavating the tunnel entrance at Mitchell Point. (photo: Courtesy of Western Federal Lands)
Mitchell Point 2.0
December 7, 2021
By Kevin GormanExecutive Director December 7, 2021 One of the great Columbia Gorge architectural treasures of the last century was the Mitchell Point Tunnel along the Historic Columbia River Highway. The massive tunnel, with five huge “windows” offering sweeping views of the Gorge, was considered the engineering marvel of the highway when it opened in 1915. […]
Students take a break on an educational hike at Hamilton Mountain during the 2018 Explore the Gorge trip. (photographer: Brandon Davis)
From Exploring the Gorge to Exploring Our Backyard
November 24, 2021
By Haley LebsackGrant Writer November 24, 2021 Every June since 2008, sixth graders from the Washougal, Washington School District have had the opportunity to attend a multi-day outdoor school program and explore the historical, geological, cultural, natural, and ecological wonders of the Columbia Gorge. Explore the Gorge outdoor program fosters students ’curiosity about, and relationships with, these natural places […]
Aerial shot of the Union Pacific unit oil train derailment and fire at Mosier, June 3, 2016. (photographer: Paloma Ayala)
Mosier Rail Expansion Defeated
November 18, 2021
By Michael LangConservation Director November 18, 2021 In a victory for Tribal treaty rights, the community of Mosier, Oregon, and conservationists, Union Pacific Railroad (UP) has thrown in the towel on its proposed 5.37-mile rail expansion project near Mosier. This fall, Friends, Columbia Riverkeeper, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, and other conservation allies joined with the Confederated Tribes of […]
The view from Cape Horn in the 1980s, before the Cape Horn landscape was conserved for public use. (photographer: John Yeon)
National Scenic Area 35th Birthday: Highlighting a Long Career of Gorge Advocacy
November 18, 2021
By Kevin GormanExecutive Director November 18, 2021 Thirty-five years ago this month, November 1986, was an auspicious time for an upstart nonprofit organization called Friends of the Columbia Gorge. A mere six years after its founding, Friends achieved what many thought was unachievable: creating the bi-state Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area to bring protection and uniformity to federal, […]
The Columbia Gorge shrouded in fog, 1980s. (photographer: Gary Braasch)
35th Anniversary: Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act Signed Into Law
November 17, 2021
By Bowen Blair Jr.Former Friends Executive Director (1982-88), Former Columbia River Gorge Commission Member, Including Chair and Vice-Chair (2012-20) November 17, 2021 On Nov. 17, 1986, President Ronald Reagan, with strong encouragement from Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, signed the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act into law, just days before the legislation would have died […]
Persistence to Improve Gorge Protections Pays Off, Despite Pandemic
November 1, 2021
November 1, 2021 By spring 2020, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and its allies were making the final push to advocate for significant revisions to the National Scenic Area Management Plan, which had been updated only once since its original adoption 30 years ago. In April alone, more than a dozen outdoor events were scheduled to […]
The unpermitted mining is near two local public schools, Jemtegaard Middle School and Columbia River Gorge Elementary School. (photo: Friends' archive)
The Dust Settles Over Illegal Mining, for Now
November 1, 2021
November 1, 2021 On May 10, 2021, Friends Senior Staff Attorney Nathan Baker spent his birthday in a seven-hour virtual hearing, which ran past midnight, fighting to protect Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the surrounding community from the impacts of unpermitted gravel mining. The Clark County land use hearing that evening was just the […]
A community member takes inventory of bottled water donations. (photographer: Leah Nash)
Water for Warm Springs Partnership
November 1, 2021
November 1, 2021 For more than two years, the people of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs—Oregon’s largest reservation—have lacked consistent access to clean drinking water and water pressure. As a result, more than 60 percent of the community cannot regularly shower, do laundry, drink from the tap, or provide adequate water for livestock or crops. […]
A section of trail at the Lyle Cherry Orchard Preserve serves as a dividing line between scorched land and an area left relatively untouched by July's Lyle Hill fire. (photographer: Sara Woods)
How the Lyle Hill Fire Affected Our Lyle Cherry Orchard Preserve
July 28, 2021
July 28, 2021 By Frances Fischer, Land Trust Coordinator, and Sara Woods, Stewardship Manager On Monday, July 12, the Lyle Hill fire broke out in the hills east of the Gorge community of Lyle, Washington. The fire grew substantially overnight into Tuesday, July 13 due to high heat and gusty winds, threatening a power sub-station […]