Underlying the legends are an impressive number of geologic features that confirm that there actually was a bridge that fell down. No, not something carved out of sandstone as something in Arches National Monument out of Moab Utah. It really was more of a dam, which kept being undercut by the current sweeping through.

The Columbia River Gorge walls are made up of basalt flows 1,500 feet thick, laying on top or an older, more easily eroded rock bed, which itself is tilted to the south. Possibly triggered by an earthquake during the Holocene time (10,000 to 12,000 years ago) there was a series of events that led to an ice age flood racing through the river canyon. When the softer strata on Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak was washed away, the top heavy basalt came sliding down to create a dam over 200 feet high. Until this too was destroyed by huge earthquakes associated with the volcano’s eruptions in circa 1500 -1650 AD. That was the “Bridge of the Gods.”

Being that 300 plus years in geologic time is just seconds in the history of the world perhaps you had better visit “Our Lady” before she decides that being a “sleeping beauty” is boring. In this is the age of female liberation, who knows what could happen next. The End