The coastal environment of Oregon and Washington is different in many ways from other portions of the United States. Heavy precipitation falls over the Coast Ranges, which support a temperate rain forest, and winter is the wet season. At the interface between a great river and the ocean, the lower Columbia River estuary is a focus today for transportation and industry, particularly at Portland, Oregon as well as Vancouver and Longview, Washington. Moderate temperature normally prevails throughout the year, which favors fruit and grain agriculture.
Conifer forests are the basis for a significant wood-products industry.
The attractions of mountains, forests and aquatic sports are the basis for a large tourist trade today. The authors visited the Portland, Oregon vicinity in May, 1999. We undertook kite aerial photography at several sites related to Lewis and Clark, who with their Corps of Discovery spent the winter of 1805-06 on the lower Columbia River estuary near the Pacific coast. When Lewis and Clark first arrived, they experienced quite difficult and dangerous conditions. After surviving some miserable weeks being pounded by waves and rain on the exposed north side of the Columbia estuary, a permanent log fort was constructed in a more protected location near modern-day Astoria, Oregon.