Oneonta Gorge

The Oneonta Gorge is in the Columbia River Gorge nearby the most visited Multnomah Falls. The U.S. Forest Service has designated it as a botanical area because of the unique aquatic and woodland plants that grow there. The basalt walls are home to a wide variety of ferns, mosses, hepatics and lichens, many of which grow only in the Columbia River Gorge.

Upon arrival at the parking lot, the Oneonta Tunnel awaits you. After being shut for 60 years plugged with debris, Oneonta Tunnel in the Gorge official reopening of the 125-foot Oneonta Tunnel, about 2 miles east of Multnomah Falls on the historic highway, was at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 21, 2009. The restored 1914 tunnel, skinny by today’s standards, is open only to pedestrian and bicycle traffic.


In August 2006 when Oneonta’s restoration began, workers pierced the piles of rock inside and saw light at the end of the tunnel for the first time since 1948. The $1.6 million restoration, which included retimbering the interior of the tunnel, provides pedestrian access to a new parking area on the east side for Oneonta Gorge users.



Oneonta Creek runs through the gorge. There are two waterfalls on the creek. Upper Oneonta Falls can be seen clearly from a footpath. The lower gorge has been preserved as a natural habitat, so there is no boardwalk or footpath through it as such. Thus, Lower Oneonta Falls can only be seen by walking upstream from the creek's outlet at the Historic Columbia River Highway. To get to a vantage point where the entire lower falls is visible can require wading through water that in some places can be chest-deep, depending on the season and the relative amount of snow-melt.

Oneonta apparently borrowed its name from a site in New York State, according to Lewis McArthur, Oregon historian and author of “Oregon Geographic Names.” The best guess, says McArthur, is that a sternwheeler named “Oneonta,” built in the gorge in 1863, traveled in the area likely lent its name to the steep gorge and creek. The name translates to “place of peace.”