Multnomah Falls Without the Crowd

Half an hour east of Portland, and the first real waterfall most Oregonians ever see. It is also one of the most photographed places in the state, which means the entire problem is other people — and that problem has a very simple solution.

The permit is the whole story now

This is the thing that has changed, and most photography guides to Multnomah Falls have not caught up with it. Since 2026, the I-84 Exit 31 parking lot requires a timed use permit between 9am and 6pm, daily, from 22 May to 7 September.

You can book one on recreation.gov for a two-dollar transaction fee, and there are limited free same-day permits at the Gateway to the Gorge Visitor Center in Troutdale and at the Cascade Locks Historical Museum. But read the rule carefully, because it contains the answer: the permit is not required before 9am.

So the practical advice and the photographic advice are the same sentence. Be there before nine. You skip the permit, you skip the queue, you skip the tour buses, and you get the only light worth carrying a tripod for. Everyone arriving at ten is solving a problem you never had.

One caveat worth knowing: the permit gets you into the lot, not into a space. It does not guarantee parking.

Where the photograph actually is

From the bottom. That is the honest answer, and it is a couple of minutes from the car park.

The frame at the top of this page is a base shot — both tiers, the bridge a thin line across the middle. It is what nearly everyone means when they say Multnomah Falls, and it asks you to climb nothing.

Benson Bridge is 0.2 miles up and about 335 feet of gain, and it is well worth walking — just be clear about why. It is a romantic walk and a social one. People go up to stand in the spray, to feel like they are properly in the place, to photograph each other. That is immersion rather than vantage. Once you are on the bridge you are up between the two tiers, and I doubt the view from there is as full as the one you already had from the base.

Beyond it, the Larch Mountain Trail (#441) carries on to the top — 1.2 miles, eleven switchbacks — and is open, continuing past the falls to Wiesendanger and Ecola if you have the morning for it. As far as I remember there is not a great deal of photographic reason to. Go up for the walk, not for the shot.

Worth not confusing that trail with Larch Mountain Road, which closes at milepost 10 from November until late May or early June. That is the drive to the summit viewpoint, not the walk up from the lodge.

Eleven switchbacks

Worth doing once anyway, for reasons that have nothing to do with photography. A neighbor brought me here when I was a kid — a big man who had no business on that trail — and I talked him all the way to the top on the promise of just one more turn. Eleven switchbacks and 1.2 miles later, he made it. He never let me live it down.

One practical note for 2026: the restrooms at the falls are closed for renovation through November, with portable toilets on site instead. Plan accordingly if you are arriving at dawn with coffee.

What the fire left

In 2017 the Eagle Creek Fire, started by a teenager with fireworks, burned close to 50,000 acres of the Columbia River Gorge and came near enough that crews had to defend the lodge at the base. Ol' Multnomah survived.

You can still read it in the landscape, and it is worth photographing rather than framing out — standing timber with no canopy, new green coming up underneath it. The gorge you are shooting is nine years into recovering from something that nearly took it.

Shooting it in winter

The frame at the top of this page is a winter one, and winter is the answer to almost every complaint people have about this place: no crowd, no permit season at all, soft flat light that suits a two-tier waterfall far better than summer sun, and the whole corridor stripped back and still.

It has one cost. When I took this photograph the path was icy and slippery, and I would gladly have worn microspikes if I had had a pair with me. They are worth throwing in the car for a winter visit — Costco usually has a cheap set on sale going into every winter season, and wet, iced, tourist-polished stone is exactly what they are for.

It is also the one time of year when the before-9am advice becomes optional rather than essential — outside 22 May to 7 September there is no timed permit, so the only reason to arrive early is the light and the quiet. Which are, admittedly, the two reasons that matter.

Six hundred and twenty feet, two tiers, still falling.

Permit dates and fees change season to season. Confirm current requirements at ODOT Waterfall Corridor Permits before you go. Last checked August 2026.