They came from near and far. They came and they stood and they sang and they strode through the soggy streets of downtown Portland on Saturday.

And they came in unexpected numbers.

The gathering, billed as the Women's March and attended by crowds estimated as high as 70,000 to 100,000 -- well beyond the 30,000 that organizers expected as of Thursday -- was not just for women, and it wasn't just for marching. The massive throng that congregated at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Saturday was no monolith and the causes represented were as diverse as the rally's participants.

The rally in Portland was just one of the dozens of offshoots of the Women's March on Washington. Just one day after Donald Trump took the oath of office on the National Mall, that same space was filled with hundreds of thousands of people opposed to his presidency. Similar marches took place across the country and around the globe on Saturday, from Atlanta to Albuquerque to Asia and even Antarctica.

Trump's policies -- including plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood -- and his appointees for key positions in his cabinet spurred many of Saturday's marchers into action.

"I think we've gotten complacent," said Michele Mariana, of Portland. "We don't just vote and then think we've done our job. We need to take personal responsibility for the privilege of living in what's left of this country. We should be grateful for this moment because it's bringing us together. It's waking us up."

Pat Robison, a 70-year-old Portland resident who was among the thousands who braved sometimes-heavy rains and temperatures in the 40s on Saturday, said Trump's proposals have left her worried about her Social Security and Medicare.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Robison said. "I'm also concerned about others. I mean, I look at the plans to defund Planned Parenthood. I'm worried about women that don't have the income that won't have access to health care."

A smaller pre-rally, organized by local labor unions at Shemanksi Park got underway two hours ahead of the main event. Shamus Cooke, 37, of Portland, wielded a black marker, writing slogans on posters such as "Workers Trump Capitalism."

"Trump's agenda is very non-union," said Cooke, contending that Trump's Labor Secretary choice, Andrew Puzder, chief executive of the Carl's Jr and Hardee's franchises, has an anti-labor record.

"They better back off," said Cooke, a Service Employees International Union member who works for the state of Oregon in child welfare.

That tone -- one of resistance mixed with solidarity -- carried through the day. By 10:30 a.m. a steady stream of rally-goers were headed into downtown over the Hawthorne Bridge and people were soon shoulder-to-shoulder on the waterfront.

The crowd was jubilant, almost to a person, which was in contrast to a protest that filled the same streets less than 24 hours earlier. Friday night's protest had a different feel and police said some in the crowd began throwing things at officers who were attempting to keep protesters off of bridges. Police deployed stun grenades and shot tear gas into the crowd.

That level of animosity was absent Saturday, though the message was nearly identical, said 16-year-old Peyton Roberts, who was at both the protest and the march.

"Last night, when there were police in riot gear the whole time, it was really interesting to see how it came out. It just felt like we were doing something wrong."

But she was out there to show love and community, she said. That's the spirit she felt at the Women's March. "It's a very different group with a very similar message," she said.

Roberts came on Saturday with her sister and her mom, Karen Roberts, who took in the size of the slow-moving crowd from the top of a parking garage at Southwest Fourth and Morrison and remarked "Portland turns out."

She said that the chant of the marchers -- "This is what democracy looks like" -- was perfect for the crushing crowd of women, men and children who waited for hours and wove through the streets.

"This is exactly what democracy looks like -- it's messy and slow. We were all going in a direction we wanted to go but maybe at different paces," Karen Roberts said.

They brought 20-year-old Emily Pappel of Eugene with them. It was her first march and the Roberts were proud to indoctrinate her.

"There are no words to the love and community I feel," Pappel said.

Many in the crowd were attending their first demonstration, galvanized by what they saw as the erosion of the respect for women under a president who has demeaned female celebrities publicly and was caught on tape bragging about sexual assault. Many others, though, were seasoned veterans of rallies like the one on Saturday.

Anne Morin of Portland marched with a walker and a large American flag with a peace sign in place of the stars. She said she's been marching since the 1970s when President Richard Nixon went into Cambodia. "I got my head bashed in," she said about that protest.

"I think our country has a cold and we need to help it heal and this kind of love," Morin said, tearing up, "it'll help I hope."

Paige Hasson, 65, said she shut down Interstate 5 in 1988 as part of a demonstration. She and her friends have been protesting most of their lives. Dede Helmsworth, 58, recycled one of her signs from a protest for education funding in Salem recently. Sally Swire, 58, took her children to LGBT rallies.

"We are the right generation to be here," Helmsworth said. "This is not our first protest."

Today, their group was marching to make their voices heard on all sorts of issues, but mostly because they think the election could be bad for education, civil rights and democracy.

"We're here for our sons and daughters," Sally Swire said.

Araya Trinidad, 9, wore a pink sparkly knit hat with Sulong Gabriela stitched across it in white letters. Gabriela is an anti-colonial heroine in the Philippines, and Araya and her mom, Alma, were invoking her spirit as they walked.

"As a Filipina woman, we hold onto those values and principles of standing firm and holding onto those values of determination and self-determination of rights and having a voice," Alma Trinidad said.

Araya held a sign that said "Love fights back," which she made because she doesn't like how Trump talks about women.

Crowds began to slowly dwindle around 2:30 p.m., as the cold and rain drove some people back across the bridges while others continued to march through downtown streets. Marchers throughout the rally, however, saw Saturday's event as a jumping-off point, not a one-off.

Nell Parker, a volunteer with 350PDX.org, arrived at 9 a.m. to Waterfront Park. She set up a small blue-tarped tent. It was enough to cover a white plastic table topped with clipboards and promotional material for the organization that fights "climate disruption."

By 12:30 p.m., she was surrounded by thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder without the ability to move fast or far. Parker, who lives in Boardman, asked people to fill out and sign prepared postcards opposing the construction of power plants in her town.

"There was a point where we had 10 clipboards going, and we just kept getting more and more people," she said. At 2 p.m., she hadn't yet begun to count the number of postcards that were filled out.

Others in the crowd shared in her hope that the march was a starting point to build momentum toward a larger movement.

"What I'm hoping is that this will be the first of its kind," said Laura Gamble, of Portland. "I hope that people will marshal around their discomfort and upset and horror around what's happening and really organize. The best reaction in my mind is one that's going to be focused -- organized and focused."

Jamie Tacker, who was marching with her 10-year-old daughter, Marcella, came out because "it's important to set an example for your kids," she said as she choked back tears.

"My goal is to do something," Tacker said, adding that she plans to volunteer at Planned Parenthood and help the Democratic party ahead of the next round of elections. "I think you definitely need to put action where your mouth is."

Demian DineYazhi, a 33-year-old Portland resident, said he marched mostly to support women.

DineYazhi, who identifies as a queer indigenous person, said Trump's presidency affects queer people in "unbelievable ways," including marriage rights, safety and access to health care and treatment.

DineYazhi, an activist since George W. Bush's presidency, said he thinks Trump's election will spur others to get more involved in activism.

"I feel like if Hillary were in office, there wouldn't have been as large of a crowd. I still feel like there are problems on both sides, the Democratic and Republican party, that need to be addressed, and so we shouldn't be comfortable. And this is kind of what Trump's presidency has reminded us of: Let's not be complacent with whatever president or whatever social power is in office. There's always cause to change things for the better."

-- Molly Harbarger, Allan Brettman, Jim Ryan, Lizzy Acker, Eder Campuzano, Tony Hernandez, Grant Butler, Jamie Hale and Janet Eastman contributed.