Multnomah Falls Today

What Is This Site

Multnomah Falls is the most visited natural recreation site in the Pacific Northwest, with over 2 million visitors every year. During peak times, the relatively small parking lot can be quickly overwhelmed, leading to logistical chaos for people trying to figure out how to access the falls. This site attempts to provide real-time data and guidance to minimize this chaos.

Multnomah Falls Today is an independent public planning tool for visitors checking conditions at the I-84 Exit 31 parking lot. It is not an official ODOT, TripCheck, National Weather Service, Recreation.gov, or U.S. Forest Service service.

Who Created This

Multnomah Falls Today is a personal project created by a long-time Oregonian who loves Multnomah Falls and the Columbia River Gorge, and wants to help locals and visitors alike to have a great experience there.

How Is It Produced

• Parking status comes from Oregon Department of Transportation TripCheck data for the Multnomah Falls parking area.
• The live camera still comes from the ODOT / TripCheck I-84 at Multnomah Falls Parking camera feed.
• Weather observations and forecasts come from National Weather Service data for the Multnomah Falls area.
• Timed-use permit information is summarized from the public permit details published through Recreation.gov and related official visitor resources.
• The site attempts to predict future parking lot occupancy using a combination of historical parking lot data, weather forecast data, permit status, and other information.

Update Cadence

In live mode, parking data is refreshed about once per minute, the camera about every five minutes, weather about every 15 minutes, and the parking forecast about every 15 minutes. Source outages, network delays, browser caches, and upstream publishing delays can make any item older than its normal cadence.

Forecast Caveats

Crowd and parking predictions are estimates, not guarantees. Forecasts can miss sudden traffic surges, incidents, weather shifts, special events, source delays, and operational changes at the lot. Use the forecast as a planning signal alongside the current parking status, live camera, official permit rules, and your own judgment.