Four lookouts and thirteen waterfalls
An All-American Road in Oregon with more waterfalls on the road than lookouts on the roster, and one lookout set down among the falls near the two tallest.
Four lookouts are on the roster for the Historic Columbia River. On the byway itself, the record marks thirteen waterfalls. That is more than three falls for every catalogued place to stand and look, and the falls do not wait for the lookouts to catch up.
Thirteen waterfalls on the byway, four lookouts on the roster. The falls outnumber the places set aside to look at them.
Two lookouts at the western end
Portland Women's Forum State Scenic Viewpoint and Crown Point sit under nine tenths of a mile apart by their published coordinates. Both are west of every waterfall on the list. Pioneer's Stone, a historic site on the byway, is a little over a mile from Crown Point.
Thirteen falls in eight miles
Latourell Falls. Shepperd's Dell Falls. Bridal Veil Falls. Coopey Falls. Dalton Falls. Mist Falls. Wahkeena Falls. Shady Creek Falls. Lower Multnomah Falls. Multnomah Falls. Waespe Falls. Horsetail Falls. Ponytail Falls. West to east, that is every waterfall the record marks on the byway, and the farthest two apart, Latourell and Horsetail, are eight miles from each other in a straight line.
Multnomah appears twice, once as Multnomah Falls and once as Lower Multnomah Falls. Eleven more waterfalls sit just off the byway, none of them farther than a mile and a half from it.
Eleven of the thirteen on the byway carry a recorded height. The tallest two are Multnomah Falls at 165 metres and Mist Falls at 158. The shortest is Lower Multnomah Falls, at 21.
The one lookout among them
Lemmons Viewpoint is the only lookout on the roster set inside the run of falls. It sits less than a tenth of a mile from Wahkeena Falls, three tenths of a mile from Mist Falls, and under six tenths of a mile from Multnomah Falls. The single catalogued place to stand in the middle of the waterfalls is within six tenths of a mile of the two tallest.
To the Oregon Pioneers, a historic site recorded as built in 1916, is on the byway there too, under a sixth of a mile from Multnomah Falls.
Rowena Crest, a long way east
The fourth lookout keeps its distance. Rowena Crest Overlook is nearly thirty-eight miles east of Ponytail Falls, the easternmost of the thirteen, and almost forty-one from Lemmons Viewpoint, both in a straight line. No other lookout on the roster sits between them.
The Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail is recorded two thirds of a mile off the route, five and a half miles from Rowena Crest.
What that makes the drive
The catalogue packs its falls into eight miles and sets its lookouts at the western end, at one spot in the middle, and far out to the east. Driven east, the waterfalls come one after another with a single catalogued lookout among them, and the last lookout arrives only after every one of them is behind you.
Thirteen waterfalls come first. The last lookout is nearly thirty-eight straight-line miles past the last of them.
Rowena Crest is where the roster ends, with all thirteen falls somewhere back along the road. Stand there and face the way you came.