MOUNTAINS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST - On the Road Again with Rick and Kim

Another Road Trip With Rick and Kim From a Shunpiker’s Journal
By Steve Purdy

We’ve gotten in the habit of traveling at least once a year with our friends (and my pretty blonde’s brother and sister-in-law) Rick and Kim. This fall’s trip is a week at a time-share condo at the base of Mt. Hood, near Portland, Oregon. We’ve tacked on a couple of extra days in Seattle that will allow us a couple more mountain tours there.

This will be the first trip in about 5 years that has not featured a test vehicle. The auto industry is in such trouble and the press fleets are so depleted that I was unable to score a vehicle in Seattle, so we had to rent a car. What’s the world coming to?

Well, we might as well do a review of the car we have, I suppose.

We rented a 2009 Impala - GM’s best-selling white-bread sedan - a popular car for rental fleets. It is certainly roomy and swallowed our luggage in its deep trunk (18.6 cubic-feet) with plenty of space to spare. Initial impressions are of a competent, comfortable sedan with a reasonably attractive, modestly freshened design and certainly improved over the Impala of just a few years ago.

I had forgotten how raped we can feel, by the way, renting a car at the airport. Just about a third of the cost is taxes and fees. I can think of no other transaction that is taxed so intensively.

MT. RAINIER

Day one of this adventure takes us on a clockwise tour from our weekend abode in Kent, WA around the magnificent Mt. Rainier, just a short ride from Seattle. We were here once before and did a counterclockwise tour on a cloudy fall day which resulted in poor light caused by both weather and always being on the wrong side of the mountain to take advantage of the limited light we had. This trip was infinitely better in both regards.

Coming in from the northwest in the morning allowed us to take advantage of the morning light right from the beginning of our day. Climbing the twisty drive up to the closed Sunrise Visitors Center on the northeast side of the national park provided view after view of the mighty mountain - over 14,000 feet high and covered in glaciers and some new snow. It was cold and windy up there but clear and vibrant with fall colors just coming on.

The Impala drives well with a ride and handling characteristics as conventional as the suspension under it. Our rear seat passengers report enough room for comfort and good visibility but surprise, no cup holder for Rick’s ubiquitous hot chocolate.

As we turned into the southeast corner of the park we were out of the wind on a short annotated hike into the dense forest of old growth trees along the Ohanapecosh River. The Grove of the Patriarchs is where we find the huge, old western red cedar, western hemlock and Douglas fir that thrive in this unique ecosystem. Some of these monsters are over a thousand years old and they have found a congenial environment in this low, wet corner of the park.

The next stop was at another familiar spot remembered from our earlier visit - the pull-off spot called Box Canyon. Its charm is the narrow, deep gorge cut into solid rock where the Muddy Fork of the Cowlitz River crosses under a charming stone bridge. Looking down into the chasm we try to imagine the forces of nature that can cut so vertically into the igneous rock.

Amazing views of the mountain jump out at us all along the road traversing the south side of the park through Paradise where an informative visitors center describes this amazing geological feature. On the way out of the park, just east of Elbe on Highway 706, is one of the most unusual sculpture parks we’ve ever encountered. We remembered the place from our last trip as well and had to stop again. Most of the same pieces were on display - creatures both imaginary and representative are made out of metal, wood and any other material the artist, Dan Klennert, found or had lying around. One of my favorites is the horse’s ass made of horseshoes. This kind of art is known as bricolage.

The rental company calls this a full-size car but it’s most often compared to a mid-size sedan. With 5 or 6-passenger iterations, the front-wheel drive Impala comes in five trim levels, from tepid and plain LS, 3.5-liter V6 to hot and less plain SS, with V8 power.

MT. ST. HELENS

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 29 years since Mt. St. Helens blew out her entire north side in an event more explosive than an atomic bomb - in fact, with more power than 100 bombs the size of the ones we dropped on Japan to end World War II. In those intervening years the government has built a new road to, and interpretive center at, the closest ridge to the mountain herself.

A bitter cold wind blew steadily over the ridge as we spent an intriguing few hours understanding the geology, the physics and the human toll that characterized this cataclysmic blowout. It’s also hard to imagine the magnitude, intensity and scale of the event. Imagine a third of this formerly nearly 10,000-foot mountain just sliding away and blowing out the side. Over 230 square miles of forest were flattened and 57 people lost their lives.

Shortly after the blow forests were beginning to be replanted by Weyerhaueser (the forest products company who managed the forests) the Federal government built a carefully engineered road featuring a series of magnificent bridges into the interpretive center on that ridge facing the north side of the mountain. From there we have a great view of the lava dome in the center that portends volatility to come.

Along the road we encountered a wimpy, seedy berry that looked sort of like a blackberry. It turned out to be a “marionberry” (no relation to the dishonored Washington DC mayor) from which the locals make jelly - a new botanical discovery for us.

MT. HOOD

Just into Oregon, looms the mighty, 11,000-foot Mt. Hood with frosted glaciers on top. From a distance she’s shaped like Madonna’s pointed bra. Like her siblings all along the Cascade Range - Rainier, Adams, Hood, Three Sisters - she is volcanic and still active, though temporarily quiet. We had a brief view of her majesty as we arrived but then the weather closed in and the first snow of the season blanketed the lower elevations coming very close to our resort.

Our resort sits right at the edge of the foothills of the Cascades and Mt. Hood itself at a little village called Welches on Highway 26. For those unfamiliar with the area, that’s just a couple miles west of Zig Zag and 12 miles west of Government Camp. There appears to be at least a week’s worth of exploring we could do within a short drive from here.

Initial explorations are great fun on one of these trips to places we haven’t been. A loop tour around the base of Mt. Hood takes us east on Highway 26 up the side of the mountain to the little skiing village called Government Camp, then north on Highway 35 to the bustling town of Hood River at the confluence of the river that comes off the mountain and the mighty Colombia River. Then west on I-84 and old US 30 back to near Portland before returning back southeast to our resort at Welches.

The east face of the mountain is a great fruit-growing region with a special emphasis on pears. We found dozens of roadside fruit stands with baked goods, cut flowers, locally grown vegetables and, this time of year, pumpkins. One of these is famous for cookies and big, beautiful turnovers called “hand pies.” I bought a huckleberry one, though the marionberry sounded delicious as well. It turned out to be a disappointment with pastry much to thick and lardy. The huge cookies were good though.

DSC_4742

We followed signs onto a side road leading us to a farm called Cascade Alpacas of Oregon where proprietor, Tom Betts, spent time introducing us to his herd, the fiber, his two friendly cats and a “leaner” dog. Not lean in the skinny sense, rather the dog, a Great Pyrene, once petted by a stranger, will continuously lean on the petter and follow the petting hand closely. What a charmer! The alpacas are beautiful animals with pretty faces. One spit on Cathy while she tried to feed some others.

Around the corner, past Hood River, we found the Bonneville Dam where the history of the area and of the remarkable engineering projects that have come to characterize the Colombia River Gorge are presented by the US Army Corp of Engineers at a large interpretive center. Next door we visited the large fish hatchery where millions of salmon are bred and released and where a 500-pound white sturgeon named Herman hangs around his pond with a bunch of his colleagues. Trout are released from the hatchery as well but are raised elsewhere.

A series of 7 major waterfalls, the greatest concentration of them in the US, flow over the cliffs lining the south side of the Colombia River. A drive and exploration of them all took more than a half-day. Two of them feature footbridges half way up requiring short up-hill hikes. Both well worth it to have the thundering mist in your face and a commanding view of this most dramatic water feature.

The only distraction to the falls is their proximity to Interstate 84 just below the old road that winds through the area. Road surfaces are rough and the roar of the freeway competes with the roar of the falls.

The lovely Mt. Hood finally presented herself to us through a distant haze, like a ghost just hinting at her presence. This is the only place in the US were people ski year around, they claim. We were about 20 miles away. By the time we drove up her side to the famous Timberline Lodge (built by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 30s) the haze was gone and just fleeting thick clouds drifted slowly across her crest. While unimpressive from the outside Timberline Lodge is filled with hand carved woodwork and massive natural features. “The Shining” was filmed there.

THE COAST The Pacific coast is a good, long day trip from our resort at Mt. Hood. We got there in 2 1/2 hours after going through Portland on US 26 that finally joins US 101 at Cannon Beach, where Lewis and Clark, with their trusty guide Sacajawea, discovered the bones of a gargantuan blue whale. (They were impressed.) The beach is now site of an upscale touristy town and a lovely state park.

Having spent too much time riding in the car this week we decided that a nice hike would be in order. The Ecola State Park at Cannon Beach offered great views of the coastline from a rocky promontory. There a trailhead marker indicated a 1-1/2-mile (each way) trail to Indian Beach just up the coast at the other end of the park. While it sounded just right it turned out to be a real challenge (for me at least) being 90% uphill both ways - or so it seemed. We could see the beach periodically from the trail but each time we thought we were headed down to it the trail turned steeply up again. After nearly an hour of huffing and puffing (again, for me at least) we arrived at the beautiful, sandy beach with huge rocks punctuating the shore. Cathy and Kim weren’t even breathing hard. The breeze was cool and gentle with overcast skies and huge waves pounding in. I could have sat there for hours meditating on that scene but our women are both a bit restless and wanted to get hiking back.

After finishing the hike we sat at the observation point (probably about 200 feet above the beach) to soak up the ambiance of the coastline overlooking Cannon Beach. We had seen virtually no wildlife the entire trip but here an odd-looking squirrel entertained us. His mottled fur and long tail showed an unusual color pattern - something we’d never seen here. Kim, of course, insisted on offering him some peanuts.

While Cannon Beach is an upscale village our drive down the coast to the commercial town of Tillamook revealed that many of the other towns along the way are considerably more modest. The drive, though, was lovely. The Tillamook Cheese Factory is that town’s main feature. There we learned about cheese making and had a few samples before heading back to The Hood.

WILDWOOD NATURE PARK

DSC_4825

Finally, the Wildwood nature park, part of the BLM, gave us the opportunity to soak up the ecology of the mountain rain forest environment. So much moisture is sucked out of the clouds by the upslope of the big mountain that the west side base is literally a rain forest with thick moss, lichens, fungi, and wet land vegetation of many kinds just thrive there. Most impressive is the moss that clings to the trees looking like giant fuzzy green spiders. Walks along the river through the deep woods and into a wetland area are well used and easily navigated.

We still encountered little fauna to speak of with the exception of some mighty big slugs and a frog or two. A few vivid fall colors decorate the wet areas and edges of the forests.

Oh, I guess I forgot about the car. I hope you were not reading this just for the car review. Yes, the Impala is a perfectly good car - nothing exciting, to be sure, but practical, nice looking and congenial. GM has long ago amortized the development cost for this one. After all, it’s probably over 10 years old by now. They still make and sell plenty of them though, and great deals can be had at your local Chevy dealer.