Washington

Remember the devastating pictures you saw back in 1980 after Mt St Helens erupted - the barren landscape with every single tree blown down like matchsticks? Well it has recovered - The surrounding area has been replanted by lumber companies and is now a giant forest again. It is only inside the park where nature's unaided course is slower that you can see thousands of trees lying on their sides. But even there, areas of regrowth are occuring. We were treated to unobstructed views of the mountain in cloudless skys - something they say is not common. The volcano continues to erupt, but in a much more gentle manner these days. Believe it or not, the closest camping is 40 miles away - there's no camping inside the park. We were sneaky and found a gravel forest service road to camp on about 7 miles away, just outside the park boundary.


Our next stop was Mt Rainer, of which I've had vivid memories of since visiting as a child: an image of the mamouth white mountain standing high in the blue sky. While I feared it would be obscured by clouds this trip (like it usually is), we were treated to another sparkling clear day. Our hike up to Panorama Point (and a bit beyond toward the summit base camp) was stellar. I think I'd like to climb to the top some day (or another peak like it). The scale and contrasts were striking: White snow covered mountain top, vast blue sky, deep green evergreen, and dark jagged rock. The hike was mostly in the snow, so some of the decent was on our butts on a tarp we brought for just that purpose. A bit out of control at times (in a fun way).


Now we made our way west to the coast for the rain forests. On the way we did some mountain biking and camped in an area outside Olympia called Mima Falls. It was a very nice bike ride thru the forest - peppered with sections passing thru regions that had been clearcut - very weird - a landscape of endless stumps. The next day we visited the beaches in the Olympic National Park - I've never seen such massive heaps of driftwood before - acres and acres of giant tree trunk logs piled all over each other - 6 or more feet deep. It lines the beaches, and signs warn of the obvious danger it creates during high tide when they must all be sloshing around like ton missiles. The hike up the Hoh river trail was rated as one of the top ten hikes in the US, and it was quite unique - moss everywhere, hanging from every tree branch. We looked for hobbits but didn't see any.