For now, I am combining the original route with the state trail route on one page. Eventually I will probably split this segment up into multiple pages, but I don't have much content for the eastern portions posted yet.

I-84 Cut to Tunnel

Route 2

Tunnel Under I-84

HCRH State Trail

Jackie Scott, Trail opens window to old forest

Clifford Chew, project engineer with the Federal Highway Administration, said tunneling under I-84 was one of several challenges in renovating the old highway for foot traffic. The 150-foot-long tunnel, built in precast concrete and finished with portals of hand-laid stone, cost about $500,000. Chew said digging a tunnel was the only way to get trail users from one side of the freeway to the other and still follow the old highway’s alignment. Road, tunnel and bridge projects in the Columbia River Gorge shunted I-84 traffic into two narrow lanes last summer, causing backups and complaints from motorists. Chew’s tunnel was responsible for only a slight amount of the disruption, just one month when traffic above had to be shifted to the north or south.

Chew said the Eagle Creek-Cascade Locks trail attempts to honor the spirit of the original highway, which featured frequent resting spots for tourists to absorb the natural scenery of the gorge. Stone benches can be found at the north and south portals of the tunnel. But trail builders employed heavy equipment in a way that Sam Hill, the early-day visionary of good roads, could not have imagined. Chew said excavators using power equipment lifted and stacked boulders to create a series of heavy retaining walls molded to the landscape.

"As part of the 1999 FHWA project, a pedestrian tunnel was constructed under the Interstate 84 alignment."

On to Cascade Locks...

"North of the four-lane highway, the HCRH State Trail follows a new alignment eastward for 2,000 feet before continuing on the original CRH roadbed to the Bridge of the Gods, in Cascade Locks, at HMP 45.8."

CLICK HERE to continue exploring the highway