Road Trip to Washington - Day 6

Cape Disappointment: 'The first known documentation of the site was in 1775 by Spanish explorer Bruno Heceta, who named it “Bahia de La Asuncion,” or Bay of the Assumption.  Then in 1788, British trader John Meares named it “Cape Disappointment” when he mistakenly believed that the mouth of the Columbia River was only a bay. " (from the Park Service)IMG_9828Yesterday's blog left off at Cape Disappointment State Park. Here is the campsite the next morning.DSC_3812 There is a small lake just behind the campsite and in the morning I heard this osprey. I watched quite awhile trying to get a better photo. Eventually he (she) spotted fish and I watched him dive three times, always coming back to watch from this tree. I was surprised at his loud splashdown. DSC_3842We drove over to the Interpretive Center of the Park. Outside the Lewis & Clark Center is the old Fort Canby, built to defend the entrance to the Columbia River and manned by U.S. Army troops from the mid-19th century through the end of WWII. DSC_3841We spent a couple of hours here and I highly recommend it. Dan had recently read a book about Lewis & Clark so the details of their story was fresh in his mind. I didn't take photos inside except for this that reminds me of something that looks like it might belong in a weaving studio:IMG_9832This is a faking box and the thing behind it is a Lyle gun. The sign says "Propelled by a black powder charge the gun propelled a rescue line (hawser) to troubled vessels...The spiked posts were used to wind a rescue line in a special zig zag pattern to prevent tangling in flight when fired from a Lyle gun." There were also paddles. "These paddles with detailed instructions in English and French were sent by rescue line to shipwreck victims."I think it's interesting that there was a special way of winding the line so that it would not tangle.DSC_3816After spending a couple of hours at the Interpretive Center we went to see the second lighthouse in the Park. This view is from the trail to that lighthouse. We are now looking south to the breakwater on the north and can see the one on the south as well. The Columbia River entrance is between the breakwaters. DSC_3819This is North Head Lighthouse, built 42 years after the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse was constructed because there were still too many shipwrecks in this area. It is still in service with an automated beacon. I didn't realize that each lighthouse has a unique pattern of sound and light to aid in navigation, as well as being distinguished by the color and pattern of paint. (This one is under renovation.)DSC_3829North Head is said to be one of the windiest locations in the U.S.  This is the view of the rocky coastline from the north side of the lighthouse.DSC_3826If you look closely at the rocky cliff you see cormorants--somehow gripping the steep rocky wall with amazingly little room to maneuver.  DSC_3837The beach stretches for miles just beyond this rocky point.IMG_9831Sign in the forest on the trail that overlooks the beach. The area gets seven feet of rain per year, falling in the fall, winter, and spring. However, during the summer there is fog. Cape Disappointment is one of the foggiest places in the U.S. having 100 days of fog each year.DSC_3846The plan for the day was to get to southern Oregon so that we wouldn't have as long  a drive the following day. It was time to get on the road. This is the bridge over the Columbia River.DSC_3856 Now to find the another part of the Lewis and Clark story near Astoria. DSC_3857We walked around the Fort and along a trail the followed the river, but we didn't spent a lot of time here, having had such a thorough look at the L&C story that morning. DSC_3858We read about another historic site in the town of Seaside. Before we found the site we walked to the beach.DSC_3864Looking north.IMG_9839Eventually we found the Lewis & Clark NHP Saltworks, a small fenced area right in the middle of a neighborhood. The expedition had run out of salt and needed more before making the journey home. Three men from the expedition spent six weeks here boiling seawater to secure the salt. Now we got on the road. I read that the Tillamook Cheese Factory was open to the public and I wanted to stop.IMG_9840This is an amazing place. It must be just swarming with people during the summer.IMG_9841You enter the factory and go upstairs to follow the hoofprints for a self-guided tour.

There is good signage to explain all the equipment and processes that you see. The tour ends at the cheese tasting area and of course a huge gift store.IMG_9869After the tour we got back in the truck and drove. We found a beachside (and highway-side) campground just after dark.

Road Trip to Washington - Day 4

There has been a lot going on since I wrote about Day 3 and now but I really want to finish up our Washington trip before I talk about Texas and the sheep and the farm. In the last post I ended with a photo of us in the truck at night. IMG_9686Here is the view from my sleeping bag the next morning. DSC_3661Later we wondered why we didn't buy a bigger tarp since then we could have covered the whole camper, although I wouldn't have liked not seeing out the side window. As it is there is some leakage around where the camper joins the truck bed and we had to make sure that our sleeping bags, clothes, etc didn't touch the edges or they'd soak up water.

After a quick breakfast (granola and hot chocolate for me and Cheerios and coffee for Dan) we drove further up the road to the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center.IMG_9689The name was a clue to the weather on the ridge.IMG_9694It was a wee bit breezy windy and cold. This view looks south into the Olympic Wilderness with Mount Olympus off to the right. The clouds kept moving but we never had a view of the peaks. We saw photos of this area in the summer--covered with wildflowers. I can imagine how gorgeous it is then. IMG_9699 There is a trail from the Visitor Center to the top of the nearby ridge.DSC_3683View looking down on the Visitor Center and Mt. Olympus in the clouds.IMG_9698View to the other direction and the road to the Visitor Center.DSC_3665Walking along the ridge we tried to get a view of Canada. It's out there across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but mostly in the clouds.DSC_3669More views along the trail.DSC_3676

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Pearly EverlastingI admired these flowers blooming so late in the season. They are in the sunflower family: Pearly Everlasting.Goats Beard LichenGoat's Beard lichen.

There are no roads that go all the way through the park. From Hurricane Ridge we needed to go out the way we came in before our next stop. The road goes through Port Angeles and we decided to make a stop for gloves. Why I didn't bring decent gloves I don't know. I guess, not having worn them all summer, I didn't know where they were, and it's hard to imagine cold and rain when it's 90 degrees and so dry, so I didn't look very hard. IMG_9706We both bought gloves. Next stop was Madison Falls at the edge of the Park near another road that follows the Elwha River.DSC_3693It is a short walk on a paved trail to see the falls.IMG_9707

DSC_3694At this point we were thinking about where we would stay that night. As on all of our trips there is always more to see than we have time for. This was Saturday and we needed to get home on Tuesday. That left Sunday and Monday for more time in the park with a long drive on Tuesday. The bulk of the Park takes up the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula but there is also private and tribal land along the northern coast, the far northwest corner of the state, and the western portion. I wanted to go to that farthest most point of the continental U.S. but we were going to run out of time to do that and spend time in the rainforest. There is a narrow sliver of land all along the Pacific coastline that is also part of the Olympic NP so we decided that we would camp there for the night. That decided, we stopped at the next waterfall on our Waterfall Map.DSC_3704The trail to Marymere Falls was also within the Park.DSC_3708This waterfall is on Falls Creek and drops 90 feet. Take a look at the log at the top of the falls.DSC_3712It made me think about the amount of water that must flow in this creek at times. That is a whole tree that is stuck at the top.IMG_9727 Magnificent trees.IMG_9732We were walking by this tree and I saw a young woman trying to prop her phone on the ground so that she and her friend could both be in a photo of this huge tree. I offered to take the photo and then she reciprocated.

We got to the coast late in the afternoon.DSC_3736This was the first beach where we stopped. We drove south to find that the first campground was full. There was plenty of space in the other campgrounds where we stayed so we hadn't anticipated this. The beach. RV camping. Saturday night. None of the four beach campgrounds had campsites left.

When you're in the national forest you can camp anywhere, but the rules are different in the national park. And we do follow rules. Our plan was to see the rainforest part of the Park the next day so we didn't want to leave the area. Between the coast and the access point to the Park there was mostly Quinault Reservation land along the highway and we couldn't stop there. In studying the map I found some campsites in the Forest land to the north but it was getting late in the day and it was difficult to tell the condition of the roads. There was a sliver of Forest land that was accessible from 101 with Reservation land on one side of a USFS road and National Forest on the other. We took that road as it was getting to be dusk.  The road went up...and up. We hit fog...or a cloud. The rain started. We were watching for small signs nailed to the trees that had arrows and indicated USFS or Reservation.  You really couldn't see anything at that point. Just a narrow tunnel of a road in the bushes and trees. It rained harder. Eventually we turned around and went back down to where there was a wide spot on the road. We put the tarp on top of the truck, ate a hasty dinner (more canned beans), and got into sleeping bags.IMG_9736Saturday night lodging.

Road Trip to Washington - Day 2

The first day of this series of blog posts was rather boring--just driving north to get to where we were going. It will get better, at least for those of you who like scenery of our fabulous country. We arrived in the dark at Doug and Karen's place in Newberg, Oregon. They have bide a wee farm and raise Jacob and Navajo-churro sheep. I have known them for years and have some of their sheep but have never been to their farm. The next morning we followed them around as they did chores.IMG_9635Karen lets the ewes out into the pasture where some of them race to see who will be first to find the pears that may have dropped since the day before.IMG_9636Some sheep stayed behind but this group checked out the pear snack department and then traipsed back to the barn for the morning hay.Windy Acres LightningNearby we met Windy Acres Lightning, who happens to be Buster's sire.IMG_9637This is inside the barn. There are a couple of Meridian ewes here but I don't think this is one because she has a bideawee ear tag. I like these feeders and think that we should try making some.IMG_9645This is another barn on the property. Those are some of the ewe lambs and their guard llama.Hunters Glen RoyRogersAcross the road (the property is split into 4 pieces by the country roads) there are more rams. This is Hunters Glen Roy Rogers and his wether buddy. I sure which that I could get some of these horns like Lightning and Roy Rogers on my sheep.DSC_3572After breakfast we got on the road to our real destination.DSC_3574Here is a more welcoming sign along with pretty flowers. DSC_3577We were headed to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument for our first stop. We followed State Route 504 along the Toutle River and stopped before entering the NVM at this site where the sign said Sediment Retention Structure. We followed a trail through the beautiful woods.DSC_3582

DSC_3585After a short walk we reached the dam. A sign told us: "As the North Fork Toutle River re-formed and carved new channels in the deposits [after the eruption in 1980], it became one of the world's most sediment-laden rivers. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers build the Sediment Retention Structure to trap sediments before they are carried further downstream. Sediment clogs river channels, worsening floods, and degrades water quality and aquatic habitat." It is hard to tell the scale from my photos but this is a massive structure.

IMG_9658-2               Here is an aerial view on the sign.DSC_3589This part of the structure is on the aerial photo but is the "little" part at the left end of the horizontal part of the retention structure and to the right of the spillway.DSC_3617We continued on to the NVM. There are plenty of interpretive sites before you get there, some put out by the state and some by Weyerhaeuser. From their site: "Weyerhaeuser Company began more than 100 years ago with 900,000 acres of timberland, three employees and a small office in Tacoma, Washington. Founded in 1900 by Frederick Weyerhaeuser, we’ve grown to become one of the largest sustainable forest products companies in the world." I was interested in the divergent viewpoints about the response to the destruction caused by the 1980 eruption. Weyerhaeuser began to reforest as soon as they could, planting millions of seedlings. Their sign shows a contrast between their now almost 40-year-old forests and the vegetation across the boundary where the response was to let nature take its course. Both arguments are convincing and I am not bashing a giant lumber company. After all I live in a wood house. The film that we saw in the Mt. St. Helens NVM Visitor Center, however, describes how quickly the communities begin to recover, starting with gophers, of all things,  that survived in their burrows under ash-covered areas and moved soil and seeds to the surface. The film points out that the communities are now at their most diverse and as the natural sequence of forestation continues there will eventually be less diversity as one sees in a mature forest.

I took the photo above because I wanted to share the scene as we traveled through this particular part of the forest. I think these are noble firs and you can sort of tell what I was trying to portray here. It was almost like you couldn't focus on them. The right angle nature of the branches gives the effect of horizontal lines throughout. It was striking as we drove through.DSC_3623It isn't possible to see all of the NVM in one day.  No road goes all the way through and it is a lot of driving to get to other entrances. We chose this northwest entrance and realize that we'll have to come back some day. DSC_3625I liked this closeup of the USFS sign--see the detail in the tree? Someone had to think of that.IMG_9657We started at the Visitors' Center called Johnston Ridge Observatory. Here is a model of the terrain and as the story is told different color lights come on to show lava flows, ash deposition, etc. IMG_9654View of the mountain. We never got a clear look at it because of the clouds. It is amazing to think that the whole area in this photo was impacted by the blast and that everything in the middle part of the photo is deposits from the volcano.DSC_3603Coldwater Lake was formed when volcanic debris blocked Coldwater Creek. DSC_3605A wildlife shot! DSC_3611We stopped at an overlook before leaving the area and watched as the clouds moved past the mountain. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens was mostly from the side and it created a valley that faces mostly north (the cloud filled part on the left of the photo).  DSC_3612We caught a few views of what is left of the mountain.DSC_3614This definitely warrants a return trip.

We headed north for our next destination and found a place to camp but it was almost dark and I guess I didn't get any photos there. Stay tuned!