Along the rims of the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge, sections of this "old" flume
are visible. On my way up the Gorge today, I opted to stop and take a couple photos of it.
The reason that I put the word old in quotation marks is because it is, in this case a
context dependent word. This flume was the last operating log flume in the United States,
floating lumber from Willard, Washington, to the Broughton mill located about 2 miles west
of Bingen. The flume was slightly over nine miles long with a total vertical drop of 1000
feet. It took the lumber and logs about one hour to travel the length of the flume. As much
as 150,000 board feet of lumber per day were moved in this way . The flume operated from 1923
to December 19, 1986. Scenes from the movie, Sometimes a Great Notion,
were filmed using portions of this flume.


Click here for a closer view of the flume section