Columbia River Gorge – The ExhaustNotes Blog

By Rob Morel

Joe Gresh’s Oppenheimer review reminded me of going to the Hanford National Historic Park up here in Washington along the Columbia River in the years before Covid. A lot of things have changed with Covid, and the tours offered by the US Park Service at the Hanford site. This article is about the Hanford site, the tours Hanford offered before Covid, the tours currently being offered, and the photos I collected during previous visits.

Hanford is a place with a story. Hanford was the world’s first nuclear production facility, it was designed to produce plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, and it did. Plutonium produced here was used for testing at the Trinity Site in New Mexico during World War II and in the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Hanford plant was built along the Columbia River because the reactors used Columbia River water for cooling. I’ve been told that Hanford was the biggest and most expensive construction site in the US. The place covers just under 600 acres.

The air-conditioned bus that Hanford provides for getting around the site.

Hanford produced plutonium for several years after World War II. The result was a set of serious issues with radioactive waste and contamination. Cleanup efforts are still ongoing, and are part of the Hanford tour.

Before Covid, there were three tours available during the summer. Today, there are two. It’s best to check with the Hanford site before visiting to find out what is available for any planned visit.

Tour 1: The Full Meal Deal

A tour Hanford used to offer included everything (that’s why I call it the Full Meal Deal). This tour required registering online in advance, and I found I had to do so as soon the registration page started accepting reservations. The tour slots filled up quickly for the entire summer. When I last signed up, the government ran a background check on me ahead of time to make sure I was not a bad guy.

The Full Meal Deal tour started in the morning and went most of the day. It included seeing the B Reactor (where the Nagasaki bomb plutonium was created), cleanup work that involved filtering underground water, and the vitrification plant being built to turn the highly radioactive sludge in the 1940s storage tanks into glass. The vitrification process involves melting sand and mixing it with the radioactive waste to make it into a solid form. This solid form can then be buried without fear of it leaching out into the water table.

The Full Meal Deal tour includes a visit to the environmental restoration disposal waste facility. It is a covered, city-block-sized dump pit used for low level radioactive building materials, equipment, machinery, and other nasty stuff. The pit is lined with a barrier clay that absorbs radiation. Pumps remove any rain water that seeps into the covered materials. Hanford buries a level of radiated items across the bottom of the pit and then they cover it. That’s followed by burying more on top of the previous layer and covering that. This will continue until they fill the pits. When the pits approach their capacity, Hanford plans to take any equipment used to haul the debris and bury it, too. When the pit is completely full, Hanford will to cover it. It will look like the surrounding desert when they are done.

Tour 2: The B Reactor Tour

The B reactor tour includes (as the name implies) the B reactor, and I believe this tour is still offered. It provides a close up look at the reactor that made the Nagasaki bomb plutonium. As the name implies, it only includes the B Reactor. You can stay longer at the B Reactor than the Full Meal Deal tour above allowed, and Hanford opens up more of the building to explore. There are some places in the building you cannot go. The off-limits area includes where the fuel rods were pushed out of the back of the reactor (after which they fell into a water tank, cooled, and were then transported by rail to a building that processed them into plutonium).

There were nine reactors built at Hanford. Of these, seven were cocooned in concrete to contain radioactivity and cool to safe levels. By 1987 they were all shut down. None are operational today.

I didn’t get any photos other than the B Reactor. If I remember right, there were no cell phones or cameras allowed on the Full Meal Deal tour for security purposes. But I took photos of the B Reactor, as you can see below.

Hanford’s historic B Reactor. This reactor produced the plutonium used at Nagasaki.

Entering the belly of the beast: The Hanford B Reactor where spent nuclear fuel cells provided plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb.

A model of the nuclear reactor showing the cooling and beryllium rods used to control the reaction.

The actual reactor, with cooling pipes on each side that used Columbia River water to cool the core.

The water plumbing. Some valves are taken apart. That satisfies the Russians that the Reactor is non-operational. This is a part of the nuclear arms agreement. The Russians actually inspect the reactor to verify it is shut down. We do the same for their reactors.

A signature. Was this a previous worker at Hanford?

A clock that shows when the plant was shut down.

A control center for watching core power and temperature.

There were no computers in Hanford back in the 1940s.

Another view of some of the reactor controls and monitors.

The train used to transport highly radioactive highly radioactive depleted fuel rods for further processing into plutonium.

Beryllium balls used for controlling the nuclear reaction.

Massive amounts of air were needed for ventilation.

Personal Protective Equipment. Hanford was not a typical office job.

Tour 3: The Old Hanford Town Site Pre-War Tour

In my opinion, there’s not much to see on this tour. There’s a farming area where the previous inhabitants were told to leave at the start of the Manhattan Project. There is what’s left of the old concrete high school. The tour guide explained that someday Hanford hopes to restore it. You can see the old roads that went through the town and where the ferry crossed. The history the guide presented made it worthwhile.

Another Option

You can go to www.vtours.hanford.gov and take a virtual tour if you’re not able to go in person.

The Bottom Line

Look online (Hanford National Historic Park) for more info. I don’t think they are doing the Full Meal Deal tours since Covid (other than online virtual tours). Hanford is offering the B Reactor and Old Hanford tours the last time I checked (on a first come, first served basis).

I recommend a visit to the Hanford site, either in person or the virtual tour. The Hanford National Historic Park reveals a world that few of us have ever seen. It is an important part of our history.

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I’ve visited a few places in my time and I have a few favorites. The Columbia River Gorge is at the top of the list. Sue and I flew to Portland a few years ago for a quick 48-hour circumnavigation of the Columbia River Gorge. I wish I could tell you we rode a motorcycle, but it was four wheels this time. I have motorcycled through the Columbia River Gorge several times so I guess I’ve got my bona fides if I needed to prove something. But I don’t and there are times when a car is my preferred mode of travel. You know, if it gets cold, you turn on the heater. If it gets hot, you turn on the AC. If it rains, you hit the windshield wipers. Yeah, I know, I’m not being manly. It is what it is, my brothers.

So anyway, we grabbed a Hyundai Veloster at the Portland rental lot. It appealed to us, it promised to sip fuel gingerly (a promise it met), and it was comfortable for our weekend getaway.

The smart (and scenic) money on the Columbia’s Oregon side is Highway 30 (also known as the Oregon Scenic Byway), an historic (read: two-lane, non-freeway) route that parallels the Columbia River. Twisty and green with stunning views of the falls and more quiet, and offering lots of things to stop and photograph…it’s a road that checks all the boxes. There’s Multnomah Falls, the Vista House, moss-covered concrete guardrails, and much more.

Continuing east along Highway 30, still south of the Columbia River, is a ticket into a flower-covered stretch of scenery through the Rowena Crest area. Rowena Crest kind of sounds like a suburban housing tract, but it is anything but. This is good country up here in the Pacific Northwest.

This is a premier wildflower area, and they were out in force during our visit.

Here’s a shot a shot of the Columbia River in the Rowena Crest area.

We crossed the Columbia River (after riding east for most of that morning) at Biggs. Once we were in Washington, we turned left on Highway 14, the road in Washington that parallels the Columbia on the Washington side. It’s another two-lane road, although it’s busier than Highway 30 on the Oregon side.

Traveling west on 14, we were pointed directly at Mt. Hood (a snow-covered inactive volcano in Oregon).

The views and the roads are impressive on both sides of the Columbia River.

After driving for a while on the Washingon side, we came to the Bridge of the Gods. It was our ticket back into Oregon. I first rode across this bridge after riding the 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally. Good buddy Marty and I had been up to Canada and we were returning to southern California through Washington and Oregon. I love everything about the Bridge, not the least of which is the road surface. It’s grated iron, and if you look down while riding a motorcycle, it’s as if you’re flying. You can’t see the road surface at all…all you see is the Columbia River water way below. It’s really cool.

Here’s the view from the Washington side.

Here’s what it looks like as you drive across.

And one more photo, this time from the Oregon side…

During our weekend in the Columbia River area, we stayed in Hood River, a nice little town on the Oregon side. Our hotel was on the river, near a favored spot for kiteboarding and standup paddling.

A circumnavigation of the Columbia River Gorge, using the Bridge of the Gods and the bridge at Biggs at the western and eastern anchor points, makes for an ideal two-day adventure ride. Hood River is the place to stay.

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Take a look at the Motorcycle Classics story on the Columbia River Gorge, and more of our published works are here.