Viento State Park is a state park located in Oregon, along the Columbia River. It is about an hour East of Portland and the park entrance is essentially just right off Highway I-84. Viento State Park itself is not big and does not have many day visitors. It does however, have 2 camp sites located at North and South of Highway I-84. During the autumn season. many trees in Viento State Park turns its leaf color into bright yellow, which is quite a lovely scene.
On this beautiful weekend in late October, we decided to drive to Viento State Park to enjoy an autumn hike and check out the fall color in Oregon. We let early in the morning and got to Viento State Park by 9AM. There was no one else there. The day use parking fee is $5 and NW Pass is not honored here unfortunately. As mentioned before, there are campsites in Viento State Park and does not require reservation.
While we were there, we saw another car came by and started doing photo shoot with a female model. We were guessing that this is a popular area for model photo shoot.
We strolled around and headed North towards the river. As we approach the river, we came across the rail road. It was a very clear and straight rail crossing at this point where we could see very the train from very far away. We enjoyed some time here taking some photos.
We then drove to the South side of Viento State Park. There are several hiking trails here. We took the shorted and easier trail and this is Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. The trail used to be a road for cars hundred years ago. Now the trail is only used for hiking and biking. The trail is only 1 mile long and connects Viento State Park with Starvation Creek Falls. We took this trail and headed towards the waterfall. The scenery along the trail was also amazing with all the fall colors.
When we got to Starvation Creek Falls, there was no one else there for some reason although there were cars in the parking lot. We enjoyed our time seeing the water falling down from way above. It was as amazing as Multnomah Falls.
Overall, Viento State Park is a good place to spend the day for a family with small children. The trail at the park is quite easy and very well paved. Hiking trail even has fence around it preventing people stepping off the trail. Biking is also a great option here as the biking trail is well paved.
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