This free stop in the Columbia Gorge lets you watch salmon climb a staircase through a glass wall
There’s a window inside a 90-year-old dam in the Columbia River Gorge where you can watch a salmon fight its way up a flight of underwater stairs, close enough to see the scars on its back. It doesn’t cost a dime to walk in. And right now is one of the best weeks of the whole year to see it happen.
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Bonneville Dam sits on the Columbia River near Cascade Locks, about 40 miles east of Portland. It went up in the 1930s as part of FDR’s New Deal, the first of what became more than a dozen federal dams on the river. It still generates power today, but the fish are the real draw.
The complex is officially called Bonneville Lock and Dam for a reason — it includes a navigation lock that barges still use today to get around a stretch of river that used to stop boat traffic cold.
Salmon can’t swim straight up a wall of concrete, so the dam includes a fish ladder — a staircase of small pools that lets fish climb the river gradually instead of all at once. At the Bradford Island Visitor Center on the Oregon side, an underwater viewing room puts you face-to-face with that staircase through a wall of glass.
Fish move through the ladder year-round, but late August through October is fall Chinook season, and the first two weeks of September are typically the single best stretch of the year to watch them climb. Stop by this week or next and you’ve got a real shot at watching salmon work the ladder one after another.
It beats any nature documentary, honestly. Nothing sits between you and the fish but a pane of glass and a few feet of water.
The viewing room sits below ground, and the fish keep climbing rain or shine, which makes this one of the rare Gorge stops that works just as well on a soggy fall day as a sunny one.
The visitor center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and both admission and parking are free. There’s no forest pass or park pass involved either — Bonneville is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site, not a national forest or national park unit.
Drive a few minutes farther and you’ll reach Bonneville Fish Hatchery, home to Herman the Sturgeon. Herman is a roughly 10-foot, 500-pound white sturgeon who’s lived there since 1998 and is estimated at more than 80 years old, and he swims in an open-air pond you can walk right up to, no glass required.
Cascade Locks itself is worth the extra half hour, with the Bridge of the Gods spanning the river right in town. Pair the two and you’ve got a full Gorge day that costs nothing but gas.
Trip tips: grab a rental car to get out here, lock in your hotel before the good rooms are gone, or skip both and book a camper van instead.
Rules and fees change — always confirm current requirements before you go.
