The Mitchell Point Tunnel is now open to visitors who will be welcomed with a new parking lot and rest area. The Oregon Department of Transportation continues work to reconnect the Historic Columbia River Highway. The small details were a large part of its construction.
The Mitchell Point Tunnel is now open to visitors who will be welcomed with a new parking lot and rest area. The Oregon Department of Transportation continues work to reconnect the Historic Columbia River Highway.
The Mitchell Point Tunnel is now open to visitors who will be welcomed with a new parking lot and rest area. The Oregon Department of Transportation continues work to reconnect the Historic Columbia River Highway. The small details were a large part of its construction.
THE GORGE — Nearly seven years after planning began, the Mitchell Point Tunnel and a 1.5 mile segment of trail is officially open to the public. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) held a dedication in November to give members of the public a first look at the arched windows and expansive views of the Columbia River Gorge. The event was very well attended, because ODOT said the trail would close again to finalize a few minor projects.
Terra Lingley is the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Coordinator, and she spoke to the tunnel’s secondary closure and the remaining segments of the Historic Columbia River Highway.
“When I first started this job in 2017 there were five miles left to reconnect for the Historic Columbia River Highway,” she said. They are closer now than ever with just two miles of trail left to rebuild. But the opening of Mitchell Point Tunnel was delayed because there was not an even shelf for the trail. On second inspection, surveyors found a rock chasm west of the tunnel to be much deeper than originally anticipated. Lingley says crews had to go back to the drawing board.
The Mitchell Point Tunnel is now open to visitors who will be welcomed with a new parking lot and rest area. The Oregon Department of Transportation continues work to reconnect the Historic Columbia River Highway.
Noah Noteboom photo
“We had to scramble and redesign and build a half bridge to span the gap where that rock was deeper than we thought,” she said. Workers were then able to re-surface the concrete wall and maintain consistency with the rest of the trailside. Certain weather conditions were also required as workers were lifted 90-100 feet in the air to resurface the entire section.
Currently, the Mitchell Point Tunnel trail section is standalone as ODOT is still working to connect the east and west ends. According to Lingley, bids for the full Viento to Mitchell Point construction came in 40% higher than what was budgeted so ODOT divided the full project and delayed construction for the 0.9-mile segment from Perham Creek to Mitchell Point.
“We had to break it up into phases and do what we could with the money that we had available and the bids that we had on hand,” Lingley said. There is a temporary pedestrian trail, and it does not accommodate cyclists along the unimproved section. Lingley added that they have identified funding from the Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP) and anticipate construction to begin this year.
Construction on the western segment of the 1.6-mile section of trail from Mitchell Point to Ruthton Park will begin this fall but Lingley said it will be costly.
The small details were a large part of its construction.
Noah Noteboom photo
“We’re still working on the nitty gritty details, but [the cost] was about $48 million to get from the [Mitchell Point] into the City of Hood River,” she said. The project was awarded $11 million in May 2024 from the Biden Administration’s Nationally Significant Federal and Tribal Land Program. ODOT is working to identify the remaining construction funding to fully connect the trail into Hood River.
Once additional funding is identified, the final trailhead will be located at Ruthton County Park and when complete, visitors will be able to walk from Hood River to Mitchell Point and beyond. Ruthton County Park will be renamed to Ruthton Trailhead and be maintained by the Oregon State Parks Department.
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