The Sandy River is a tributary of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

in northwestern

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

in the United States. The Sandy joins the Columbia about upstream of

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

Course

Issuing from Reid Glacier on the southwest flanks of Mount Hood in the

Cascade Range The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...

, the Sandy River flows generally west and then north for through

Clackamas County Clackamas County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 421,401, making it Oregon's third-most populous county. Its county seat is Oregon City. The county was named after the Native ...

and

Multnomah County Multnomah County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 815,428. Multnomah County is part of the Portland–Vancouver– Hillsboro, OR–WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Th ...

to the

at Troutdale. In its first , the Sandy River flows across Old Maid Flat, north of Zigzag Mountain in the

Mount Hood Wilderness The Mount Hood Wilderness is a protected wilderness area inside the Mount Hood National Forest, in the U.S. state of Oregon. The area, covering , includes the peak of Mount Hood and its upper slopes, and ranges from temperate rain forests at the ...

of the

Mount Hood National Forest The Mount Hood National Forest is a U.S. National Forest in the U.S. state of Oregon, located east of the city of Portland and the northern Willamette River valley. The Forest extends south from the Columbia River Gorge across more than of fore ...

. In this initial stretch near the headwaters, it receives Rushing Water Creek from the left, Muddy Fork from the right, then Lost Creek and Horseshoe Creek from the left, and crosses under Lolo Pass Road just before receiving Clear Creek from the right. At about from the mouth, the

Zigzag River The Zigzag River is a tributary, about long, of the Sandy River in the U.S. state of Oregon. The Zigzag and one of its major tributaries, the Little Zigzag River, drain the Zigzag Glacier on Mount Hood, a high volcanic peak in the Cascade Ra ...

enters from the left near the

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Zigzag A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular. In geometry, this pattern is described as ...

. From here the river runs roughly parallel to U.S. Route 26, which is on its left for about the next . Just below Zigzag, the Sandy River passes the unincorporated community of Wemme on the left. At about from the mouth, the river receives Hackett Creek from the right, passes the unincorporated community of Brightwood shortly thereafter, and receives North Boulder Creek from the right. Barlow Trail County Park and remnants of the

Barlow Road The Barlow Road (at inception, Mount Hood Road) is a historic road in what is now the U.S. state of Oregon. It was built in 1846 by Sam Barlow and Philip Foster, with authorization of the Provisional Legislature of Oregon, and served as the la ...

lie to the right along this stretch of the river. Between and from the mouth, the Salmon River enters from the left. Roughly later, Wildcat Creek enters from the left and then Alder Creek and Whiskey Creek, also from the left. The river passes the Marmot gauging station operated by the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

(USGS) in cooperation with

Portland General Electric Portland General Electric (PGE) is a Fortune 1000 public utility based in Portland, Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties - 44% of the inhabitants ...

river mile A river mile is a measure of distance in miles along a river from its mouth. River mile numbers begin at zero and increase further upstream. The corresponding metric unit using kilometers is the river kilometer. They are analogous to vehicle roa ...

(RM) 29.8 (river kilometer (RK) 48.0). The unincorporated community of

Marmot Marmots are large ground squirrels in the genus ''Marmota'', with 15 species living in Asia, Europe, and North America. These herbivores are active during the summer, when they can often be found in groups, but are not seen during the winter, ...

lies to the right of the river on a ridge—the Devil's Backbone—separating the Sandy River from the Little Sandy River to the north. About below the Marmot gauge, the river receives Badger Creek from the left. It passes under Ten Eyck Road about from the mouth, flowing by the city of Sandy on the left, shortly thereafter and receiving Cedar Creek, home of the Sandy Fish Hatchery, from the left. At about from the mouth, the river turns away from Highway 26 and flows generally north-northwest for the rest of its course. About further downstream, the river passes Dodge Park on the right, receives the Bull Run River from the right and passes a second USGS gauge at RM 18.4 (RK 29.6). Shortly thereafter, Walker Creek enters from the right. Between and from the mouth, the Sandy River enters Multnomah County, curves back into Clackamas County, and re-enters Multnomah County. About further downstream, Bear Creek enters from the left, and the river flows around Indian John Island. Soon Trout Creek, Gordon Creek, and Buck Creek all enter from the right as the river winds through Oxbow Regional Park between and from the mouth. Passing Camp Collins about later, the river receives Big Creek from the right.

Dabney State Recreation Area Dabney State Recreation Area is a park on the Sandy River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in Multnomah County Multnomah County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the county's population wa ...

is on the right about later.

Lewis and Clark State Recreation Site Lewis and Clark State Recreation Site is a state park in eastern Multnomah County, Oregon, near Troutdale and Corbett, and is administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. It is located on the Sandy River, near its confluence wi ...

is on the right and Troutdale on the left at about from the mouth, where Beaver Creek enters from the left. Shortly thereafter, the river passes under Interstate 84 and flows by Portland-Troutdale Airport, which is on the left about from the mouth. The Sandy River then joins the Columbia River about from where the larger river enters the Pacific Ocean. The confluence is about east of

, near the lower end of the

Columbia River Gorge The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to deep, the canyon stretches for over as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range, forming the boundary between the st ...

Discharge

Measured by a

(USGS) gauge downstream of the Sandy's confluence with the Bull Run River, from the mouth, the river's average discharge is . The maximum daily recorded flow is , and the minimum is .

History

Archeological evidence suggests that Native Americans lived along the lower Columbia River as early as 10,000 years ago. The area near what later became

The Dalles The Dalles is the largest city of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The population was 16,010 at the 2020 census, and it is the largest city on the Oregon side of the Columbia River between the Portland Metropolitan Area, and Hermiston ...

, on the Columbia east of the mouth of the Sandy River, eventually became an important trading center. The Indians established villages on

floodplains A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

and traveled seasonally to gather huckleberries and other food on upland meadows, to fish for salmon, and to hunt elk and deer. Although no direct evidence exists that these lower-Columbia Indians traveled up the Sandy, it is likely that they did. Traces of these people include

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s carved into the rocks of the Columbia River Gorge. More recently, within the past few thousand years, Indians created trails across the Cascade Range around Mount Hood. The trail network linked the trading center at Wascopam, near The Dalles, to settlements in the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, ...

. One popular trail crossed over Lolo Pass and another, which later became the

, met the Lolo Pass trail roughly where the Zigzag and Salmon rivers enter the Sandy. Indians from villages along the Columbia, Clackamas, and other rivers also traveled by water to the lower Sandy River area to fish for salmon and to gather berries, nuts and roots. In 1792

William Robert Broughton William Robert Broughton (22 March 176214 March 1821) was a British naval officer in the late 18th century. As a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he commanded HMS ''Chatham'' as part of the Vancouver Expedition, a voyage of exploration through th ...

of the

Vancouver Expedition The Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) was a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration and diplomacy, commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy. The British expedition circumnavigated the globe and made contact with five continen ...

explored the lower Columbia River. He named the Sandy River "Baring River", but noted the existence of a large sand bank that nearly blocked the Columbia River at the mouth of the Sandy River. In 1805 and again in 1806, members of the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...

explored the lower stretches of the Sandy River as they traveled down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Mount Hood, at the river's headwaters, had erupted a few years earlier, causing loose sediment to collect at the river's mouth. On November 3, 1805, William Clark wrote: "I arrived at the entrance of a river which appeared to Scatter over a Sand bar, the bottom of which I could See quite across and did not appear to be 4 Inches deep in any part; I attempted to wade this Stream and to my astonishment found the bottom a quick Sand, and impassable ...". One of the first documented visits by

European-American European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent E ...

s to the upper Sandy River basin occurred in 1838, when Daniel Lee, the nephew of missionary

Jason Lee Jason Lee may refer to: Entertainment *Jason Lee (actor) (born 1970), American film and TV actor and former professional skateboarder *Jason Scott Lee (born 1966), Asian American film actor * Jaxon Lee (Jason Christopher Lee, born 1968), American v ...

, used the Indian trail over Lolo Pass to drive cattle from a Methodist mission in the Willamette Valley to a mission in Wascopam. Other pioneers later used the trail to drive livestock over the mountains. The first wagons came over the Cascades in 1840, and in 1843 the great east-west migration of settlers to the

Oregon Territory The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. Ori ...

began. The Barlow Road, along the Indian trail leading west from the Lolo Trail, opened in 1846 and became popular with new settlers. A branch of this road followed the Devil's Backbone between the Sandy and the Little Sandy watersheds.

Hydroelectric decommissioning

Until October 2007, the river was dammed and the flow rate regulated. The

Bull Run Hydroelectric Project The Bull Run Hydroelectric Project was a Portland General Electric (PGE) development in the Sandy River basin in the U.S. state of Oregon. Originally built between 1908 and 1912 near the town of Bull Run, it supplied hydroelectric power for the ...

diverted water from the Sandy River at Marmot Dam to Little Sandy Dam on the Little Sandy River. From there the water flowed to Roslyn Lake, an artificial creation, through a wood box

flume A flume is a human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to t ...

. The lake supplied the 22-megawatt Bull Run

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

powerhouse and emptied into the Bull Run River. In 2007, engineers demolished Marmot Dam with of explosives. When in 2008 they demolished Little Sandy Dam, Roslyn Lake ceased to exist. After Marmot Dam was gone, the Sandy flowed freely for the first time since 1912, and the subsequent alterations restored the Little Sandy River to

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...

and

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

runs for the first time in a hundred years. Portland General Electric, the dams' owner, donated of land in the vicinity to a nature reserve. With the Marmot Dam removal and other habitat restoration in the Sandy River Basin Salmon, Steelhead, and Pacific lamprey are making a comeback. The Lower Salmon River upstream of the former Marmot Dam in recent years has undergone extensive riparian and river restoration. Engineered log jams and the opening of former side channels blocked by the Army Corps of Engineers since the devastating 1964 floods have taken place.

Recreation

In 1988, Congress added about of the Sandy to the

National Wild and Scenic Rivers System The National Wild and Scenic Rivers System was created by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-542), enacted by the U.S. Congress to preserve certain rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values in a free- ...

. The designation applies to two separate segments. One, administered by the U.S. Forest Service, covers from the headwaters to the Mount Hood National Forest boundary. The other, administered by the Bureau of Land Management, covers between Dodge Park and Dabney Park. Of the total, were designated "wild", "scenic", and "recreational". A wide variety of recreational activities occur along the Sandy. Hiking, fishing, backpacking, and camping are popular along the upper river. Hikes include the trail to Ramona Falls, a well-known waterfall. Other uses of the upper river and its surrounds include kayaking and

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

. Fishing, picnicking, non-motorized boating and floating are among popular activities on the lower river. Parks along the river include Dodge Park, Oxbow Regional Park, Dabney State Recreation Area, Lewis and Clark State Recreation Site,

Glenn Otto Park Glenn Otto Community Park is a park in Troutdale in the U.S. state of Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary ...

and the Sandy River Delta nature preserve.

References

External links

Sandy River Basin Watershed Council

National Wild and Scenic Rivers System
{{authority control Columbia River Gorge Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States Tributaries of the Columbia River Rivers of Oregon Rivers of Clackamas County, Oregon Rivers of Multnomah County, Oregon Mount Hood National Forest