48stateroadtrip.com

I’m almost over taking recommendations from Backpacker magazine. Sure, they recommended the Glen Alpine Trail that was outstanding and all that, but they also suggested that Crystal Peak is the one and only hike at Rainier that’s “Top 100”-caliber.

That said, they can’t account for weather. I’m going to go back and do the Harry’s Ridge trail some time in the future. Some time when you can see the mountain and it’s not going to start raining on the trail’s six-inch ledges at any second. Some time.

As it was, I only did half the hike. It’s supposed to be an 8-miler, but I cut it off at the promontory so I could crawl back over the ledge before it got wet. As far as photos go, this is what I got:

Riffe Lake, along one of the mythical, plentiful routes to Spirit Lake Highway that my GPS (erroneously) thinks exists.

A mountain flowed through it: the Toutle River, pathway of mudflows. Not that anyone cares about some eruption that happened 29 years ago, though. Apparently.

The Boundary Trail: wildflowers, ash-filled desolation, low clouds.

I have to figure out what the problem is with these photos. Either Aperture isn’t exporting them with corrections made or else Firefox isn’t down-scaling them well. This is a photo of the ledge-crawl part of the trail, just FYI.

I figure I need to show a photo of the mountain, such as it was visible.

And then it turned out that the world’s foremost cobbler restaurant was out of business.

I like St. Helens, I really need to go back on a better weather day. People seem like they’ve forgotten about this place. Many of the businesses that grew up after the 1980 eruption were shuttered and/or for sale and, you know, I kind of like seeing dilapidated buildings and other such ruins. Wasn’t much traffic on the way out there and only a few people were bothering to hike the one trail. Except for the weather — and who knew it could be cloudy in Washington?! — probably pretty nice.

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It’s like I can’t come up with decent headlines whenever my truck is having its transmission worked on. Tomorrow’s another day. My apologies in the meantime.

After pre-selecting a campground on a map at which to meet my parents the next day, I then entered T-Mobile-induced radio silence, knowing that we’d meet at that campground at 6:30 PM the next day. Turns out the campground didn’t exist any more, so we ended up just running into each other at a gas station in Packwood. It’s a good thing there aren’t many places to get lost when you’re on mountain highways.

Then we went fishing. Some guy at some store in Packwood suggested a place called Chambers Lake based on its being full of fish *and* not having any too-weird restrictions on it (most of the lakes in the area wouldn’t allow treble hooks or bait — as if it’s possible to get artificial lures without treble hooks). Unfortunately, the direct, 17-mile road from Packwood to Chambers Lake was closed for “construction”, so to reach it we had to drive 20 miles to Randle, and then 40 miles through the woods. Not that it was presented to us in those terms, but whatever.

My dad, casting.

Me, doing same.

There weren’t a lot of fish in the lake as it turns out. My dad caught one and had another strike and then we saw an osprey come down and catch one, which was also interesting for watching him have to circle around several times before he could get off the ground far enough to fly away with the added weight of late lunch.

Was cool, though, to get some use out of the fishing gear and some knowledge transfer about casting and rat’s nest management. Plus the lake was pretty, small, and uncrowded.

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Wanted to post some more photos from the drive around Mt. Rainier. I think it’s the kind of place that should seem otherworldly if you’re not from here. Maybe someone can let me know.

For instance, I’m pretty sure this view never happens in California. This is heading toward the mountain, driving between Auburn and Enumclaw.

This is the road heading west toward the Paradise Lodge inside the park. Tree tunnels don’t happen much in Orange Countay (sic).

Box Canyon, a canyon with water in it.

View of Mt. Rainier from the side of the road, across Reflection Lake. With wildflowers.

How bees do business.

Narada Falls — I enjoy the photo for its complete lack of perspective.

Nisqually River tributary wannabes.

My attempt at a Chadley photo.

It’s a pretty cool drive. At some point I’ll make a list of my favorite stretches of road on the trip and this one’s got a good shot of being on there. Fierce competition.

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Mt. Rainier is fantastic and wonderful. So are views of it. Hiking steep switchbacks through a prison of douglas firs is less fantastic. It’s hard to tell how it balances out. Ah well.

The hike has fantastic views of Mt. Rainier and, eventually, views of Mt. Adams, Crystal Lake, and what might be Glacier Peak. It’s hard work staying motivated up the dumb switchbacks, though. And then once you get above the treeline and can see stuff, it’s really just the same view of the same stuff the whole way. It’s a nice view, just: you know.

Sneaking up behind a sitting dog, putting a rope around its neck, and pulling is NOT allowed on this trail. Which pretty much killed the day for me right there.

A rockslide! Well, better tank up.

Think forest fires are good for the forest? Tell it to *these* trees. Obama should do something about this — we need forest fires where no trees are actually burned.

A wall of trees.

Mt. Rainier with the European-American River in foreground.

Wildflowers along the trail.

The final assault.

From the top, looking down.

View of Mt. Adams from the peak.

A final look at Mt. Rainier — I like the parallell between the river and the trail, although it would’ve looked better with better light on the grass. Oh. Well.

Right, so: I dunno. The views were great — probably better than anything above illustrates. It’s also never a bad thing to stand on top of a mountain peak (at least, not in my book). Plus, since the trailhead isn’t that close to the “usual” park parts, the only people on the trail are those who mean to be there, and there aren’t very many of those types of people.

So it has those things going for it. I think there are some better hikes at Rainier, though — the Burroughs Mountain Trail, for instance, is 7-8 miles long (IIRC) and offers a lot more in the way of changes of scenery. Of course, since it starts from the Sunrise Lodge, it’s a lot more crowded. But anyway. This isn’t the last time I’ll ever be at Rainier (probably), so I’m guessing at the end of the day it will have been worth it to have checked this trail out at some point (was that the question?).

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By Monday my stomach was mostly done gurgling, so I headed back out toward Mt. Rainier. I’ve driven (or more frequently been driven) out that way many, many times in my life, a lot of them on the way to go skiing at Crystal Mountain when I was a kid. Always wanted to spend some quality time with the White River that flows along the highway and thus took the opportunity.

It’s prose like that that keeps you coming back to the site. Admit it.

Meh:

It’s more dishwater-brown than white, but you can kind of see what they were getting at. The sand on the beach to the left there is made of glacier silt and very, very soft.

The river collects trees like a person might collect, I dunno, antique rifles?

The Dalles Campground includes this 700-year-old douglas fir tree.

The view out the back of my living quarters as the sun goes down. It’s kind of cool falling asleep to the sound of a river just outside your truck window.

Some day I’m going to put together a review of campgrounds I’ve visited. The Dalles campground will probably fare well. It cost $18 for this “premium campsite” (premium because it backed up to the river), which was $2 more than the other campsites. But the vault toilet was well-tended and smelled all right, it wasn’t too big a campground to start with, weren’t many neighbors, and the bugs didn’t seem to like being there.

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The most challenging thing I did all day Sunday was go to church with my parents. Which I guess could be considered challenging, depending on the point-of-view. Hmm.

Here’s another photo from my parents’ deck. They have a nice view.

Browns Point lighthouse manages through another close-call.

Back on the road on Day 23.

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2:00 PM (Day 19) – Finished hike to Tunnel Falls.

2:30 PM – Drove to Hood River, ate at Quiznos.

3:15 PM – Headed across the river and found campsite in Washington.

7:00 PM – Had beef ramen for dinner.

7:30 PM – Got really sleepy, headed to the back of the truck, fell asleep.

12:00 AM (Day 20) – Woke up, felt awful, put clothes on, crawled out of truck, took flashlight, wandered to campground’s pit toilet, threw up, spat, went back to truck, fell asleep.

3:30 AM – Woke up, felt awful, had never taken clothes back off so just crawled out of truck, took flashlight, didn’t make it to pit toilet, threw up in the bushes next to the campsite, spat.

3:45 AM – Packed up the truck, bailed on all then-current plans, headed for the shortest route to my parents’ house.

6:15 AM – Parked at the Battle Ground, Wash. rest stop, headed to back of truck, slept.

7:40 AM – Woke up, felt awful, still had clothes on, crawled out of truck, did not take flashlight, made it to the (flush!) toilet at the rest stop, didn’t throw up.

7:45 AM – Left flush toilet, found garbage can just outside restroom, threw up, spat.

Well, and then I just drove to my parents’ house in Tacoma and slept all day.

Evidence of throwing up:

Vomit on shoes. It occurred to me to take a photo of the bush I threw up on while I was throwing up, but I really wasn’t feeling well, so I kind of didn’t (take the photo, I mean).

Sick Notes:

• This *might* have been the first time I threw up since I was living in Dresden and drank all the uranium-laced Kool-Aid.
• It’s good to note that I had not forgotten how to throw up.
• After leaving the campsite, my initial thought was to go buy some Gatorade, and to choose a flavor that might taste all right coming back up (I went with fruit punch, which, I have to say, didn’t taste that bad coming back up).
• I may never eat at Quiznos again. May also never eat ramen again.
• I fell sort of bad for whoever ended up at my campsite last night.

I’ve since washed the shoes.

bkd

Just for the record, I only entered Washington for the sake of getting back to Oregon (this time). Fastest way to get from Astoria to Portland is to cross over and get on the 5, which paralells the river from Longview down to PDX — and I was in a hurry to get to PDX before REI closed. Made it!

This is the Longview Bridge.

And the REI was nice. The employees there actually knew things, which truly sets the store apart from, say, the Santa Ana branch. Got my shoes exchanged and I now own a mostly car-based GPS after determining that the personal GPS devices aren’t ready to take the place of maps.

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