Youth Education Programs Introduce Local Students to the Gorge

In April 2023, Friends hired McKenzie Hammond to coordinate our youth programs, including The Great Gorge Wahoo, a twice-annual field outing with St. Andrew Nativity School, and Explore the Gorge, an annual multi-day outing with Canyon Creek and Jemtegaard Middle Schools. Explore the Gorge is generously supported by the Camas-Washougal Community Chest, and The Great Gorge Wahoo is generously supported by the Winthrop family and Carrie Nobles.

In fall 2022, St. Andrew Nativity School 7th graders visited the eastern Gorge for insider tours of two Friends land trust preserves: Catherine Creek and Dancing Rock. And in spring 2023, 8th-grade students visited the western Gorge, stopping at Vista House to hear from Friends Board Member Kevin Price, a former region manager for Oregon State Parks, about the importance of public lands. They then learned about waterfall geology, mammalogy, water quality, and plants of the Gorge at Bridal Veil Falls. Finishing out the day, they traveled to the Bonneville Dam where they played salmon obstacle course games with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Elise Olk, and inside got to see the fish ladder and the powerhouse.

In June 2023 for Explore the Gorge, students from Jemtegaard and Canyon Creek Middle Schools came to the Gorge for several action-packed days learning about herpetology, pikas, smartphone photography, water quality, botany, and of course geology! Students ran and played in the fields at Doetsch Day Use area, dissected owl pellets, and finished the program meeting some of Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum’s ambassador raptors.

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