Sandy River (Oregon)
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The Sandy River is a tributary of the Columbia River, approximately 50 mi (80 km) long, in northwestern Oregon in the United States.
It rises in the Cascades in eastern Clackamas County, issuing from a glacier on the flanks of Mount Hood. It flows northwest past Sandy and Troutdale. Its flow averages from 1,000 - 3,000 cfs, with extremes from 45 cfs to 84,400 cfs. Currently the river is dammed and the flow rate is regulated, with a goal of at least 600 cfs of water continuously. It joins the Columbia from the south in central Multnomah County, approximately 14 mi (23 km) east of Portland, near the lower end of the Columbia River Gorge.
Tributaries of the Sandy River include the Bull Run River, Cedar Creek near the town of Sandy, as well as Alder Creek and Wildcat Creek east of Sandy. The Sandy River provides drinking water via the Bull Run Reservoir for much of the Portland Metropolitan area. The Sandy River Fish Hatchery lies on Cedar Creek very near to its confluence with the Sandy.
The river is one of the few navigable rivers in Oregon, and public use is permitted from the line of high water mark and below. Driftboat salmon fishing is considered popular in the season, with drop-in points at Oxbow, Dabney, and Lewis and Clark park.
Lewis and Clark had wrote more pages on the Sandy River than any other tribituary of the Columbia.
"... I arrived at the enterance of a river which appeared to Scatter over a Sand bar, the bottom of which I could See quite across and did not appear to be 4 Inches deep in any part; I attempted to wade this Stream and to my astonishment found the bottom a quick Sand, and impassible ..." [Clark, November 3, 1805]
The nearby Mount Hood had erupted a few years earlier, causing loose sediment to collect at the mouth. Although even today, the river can suck your leg in to the knee in some spots.