Sight · Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area
A riverfront pause beside a 10,000-year fishing tradition.
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Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Columbia River Gorge Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this place
Celilo Park and the Living Fishery“You're approaching Celilo Park, a simple riverfront picnic stop beside one of the Columbia's most important fishing places. For at least ten thousand years, Indigenous people have caught salmon along this reach.”
Plays as you drive up to Celilo Park in the Parkwolf Columbia River Gorge Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Celilo Park is a small U.S. Army Corps of Engineers riverfront park on the Oregon shore, just west of Biggs Junction. Turn off I-84 at Exit 97 for a low-effort stop to picnic, fish, boat, or reach the water. A grassy open area leads toward a rocky shoreline, with picnic tables, a restroom, interpretive displays, parking, and a view across the river. Treat it as a short pause on a Gorge drive, not a full-day attraction.
Indigenous communities have fished this reach for at least 10,000 years. Before The Dalles Dam opened in 1957, the rapids of Celilo Falls—Wy-am—were a major salmon-fishing and trading place. The reservoir submerged the falls, though their horseshoe-shaped rock formation remains underwater. Tribal fishers still work this stretch from platforms they build themselves; those are working fishing sites, not visitor structures. Celilo Park is north of I-84, separate from Celilo Village and the Longhouse to the south.
Bring lunch for the picnic tables and take time with the river view. The park is identified as wheelchair accessible, but route and shoreline-surface details are not specified; check whether the available path fits your needs. Interstate traffic and passing trains carry across the park, a real tradeoff if you are hoping for a quiet hideaway. The open Columbia view and easy shoreline access are the reasons to stop.
Wildlife
267 sightingsBald EagleMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
51 sightingsBlack BearMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
136 sightingsAmerican PikaMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
16 sightingsWapitiMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
195 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
74 sightingsChinook SalmonMost seen around 6 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Columbia River Gorge. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
ChallengingDeschutes River Trail22.6 mi · 10 hr · 2.9 mi awayA long railbed walk beside rapids, cliffs and river history.
ModerateFerry Springs Loop4.5 mi · 3 hr · 2.9 mi awayRiver views, a spring canyon and flowers on one moderate loop.Parkwolf’s Columbia River Gorge ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
