Columbia River Gorge (9-26-24)

 Technically our visit here was our third poke into the Mount St. Helens area, but there is so much do do here, that became an afterthought.

We have been here before, but we realized that it was 10 years ago, and we were in a truck camper with no towed vehicle, which limited our ability to explore.

Paul had read about a hike to “Lower Lewis Falls” that he wanted to do so that was the first place we headed. It was actually a long drive from where we were staying, but we stopped along the way to break up the trip. One of the stops was Panther Falls. It was a short hike down to a waterfall that was difficult to see from our vantage point. I think there was another trail that might have been better, but we didn’t take the time to check it out.

As it turns out, this area of the Lewis River has three sets of waterfalls, Lower Lewis Falls, Middle Lewis Falls, and Upper Lewis Falls. They were all spectacular.

There is a hiking trail that connects all of the falls, but it was a bit long for us on this day so we started by just driving up to Lower Lewis Falls. All of the falls are within .3 miles of a parking area.

After enjoying these falls, we drove up to Middle falls, and hiked up to Upper falls and back, about 4 miles. The trail itself was awesome, through the deep forest, with views of the river as we walked. 

We found this gold colored rock very interesting, and it turns out its called Gold Dust Lichen. Very appropriate.

Upper Lewis Falls was definitely picture worthy, although not very approachable.

 

Middle Falls was my favorite. The water was gorgeous, as were the falls.

Had we brought swimsuits we could have easily taken a dip, and it was definitely warm enough to do that.

 

Done for the day, we looked for ideas for the following day. We were interested in doing a repeat of our hike to Multmonah Falls, which is one of the iconic hikes in this area. Well, lucky us that we did it 10 years ago because now it’s timed entry, with a lot of road construction going on, so we skipped it and headed instead to other nearby falls.

At just 3 miles with 800 ft of gain Latourell Falls Trail felt reasonably easy, so we added in a couple of other adventures first.

Pony Tail and Horse Tail Falls were both pretty good, with a short, 2 mile loop trail to see them.

The short, one mile hike to bridal veil falls is one of those easy walks that invites crowds. We power walked the hike, saw the falls, and stopped to eat lunch.

After lunch we headed to Latourell, hiking the loop that took us past both the lower falls and the upper falls.

 

Done earlyish in the day, we stopped by the local fish hatchery- Bonneville Fish Hatchery, It was a very pleasant surprise. Originally built in 1909 it is one of the oldest hatcheries in the area. The grounds were immaculate, and there were interpretive signs all along the way.  The fish that are hatched here are Sturgeon, Rainbow Trout, and Salmon. 

The sturgeon are essentially dinosaurs, and huge- many grow to be more than 20 feet long, and they can live to be 40-60 years old.

The salmon…. are running.  Salmon are anadromous, meaning they return to spawn where they were hatched.

The salmon climbing this fish ladder were released from here years ago, and have come back to Spawn- procreate- after which, they will have completed their life cycle. A very cool example of the cycle of life.

The campground we are staying in is Beacon Rock State Park Campground. It’s very small, with only 5 spots for Rvs.

On our last day we decided we needed to hike to the top of Beacon Rock.  The trail starts in the campground, which meant no driving for Paul, a perk for sure.

This land was bought by Henry Biddle in 1915, for a dollar, specifically so he could build a trail to the top of the rock.

And what a trail it is. It is essentially built onto the side of the rock, with cement reinforcements. Its up, up, and more up. All on the side of the rock.

Once at the top, there are views of the surrounding area, especially the Columbia River. 

Mount St. Helens (9-25-24)

 

Moving on from Mt. Rainier, our  next place to explore was Mount St Helens. Like Rainier, we had decided to approach the volcano from a couple of different areas. Our first stop was the northeastern section. We had a couple of hikes in mind in this area, and were hoping to get a better glimpse of the mountain, but it was not to be. 

It was totally socked in. 

We drove up the scenic byway anyway, and did learn some interesting information about frogs. When Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, this area was blanketed with 8 feet of snow. The snow protected the animals and plants beneath it, sparing them from the ash, intense heat, and debris. Because of that, millions of frogs thrived in the new environment, and because they were there, predators came and also flourished.

There are still thousands of frogs in this area.

Spirit Lake was the hike we were planning, but we were at the overlook but couldn’t see the lake, so decided to pass.

We soon moved on to the town of Kelso, which is west of Mt. St. Helens.  This is the first real “town” we have been in, in a while. It has a Safeway, JC Penney and other stores. One of the prices we pay, literally, for going off the grid more, is  the cost of groceries. We have to take what we can get, and then pay a lot for it.  It felt good to be in a “real town”. I actually did a yelp search and found a place to get my hair cut- it’s way overdue. She did a great job.

This town has something I have never seen before- squirrel bridges! (you can see it in both pictures)

We found out from Facebook that we have friends staying in town, so we quickly made arrangements to meet up for dinner with Jeri and Terry. We had a great time catching up and hopefully will see them soon, down the road. 

This access area to Mt. St. Helens is the busier side, and therefore has more to see and do.

One of the main hikes we wanted to do from the Kelso area is called Ape Cave. Weird name, and it has nothing to do with monkeys, per se. It was named  by the first explorers of the cave.

The Reese boys were members of the Mt. St. Helens APE club, a club for outdoor enthusiasts.

There are two trails inside the lava tube, a hard one and an easy one. Reviews of the hard one recommend helmets because hitting your head is a distinct possibility. That’s a quick “no” from me, so we took the easy trail. As Lava tubes go it wasn’t very interesting. We walked as far as we wanted and then turned around. The biggest perk was that although the temperature outside was in the mid 80s, inside the cave, it was a cool 42 degrees.

Once back outdoors, the  skies had cleared enough that we got our first good, albeit smoky, view of Mount St. Helens.

Our second hike of the day, Lava Canyon was very short at under a mile, but more scenic than Ape Cave.

The following day was our big foray into the national monument, with our first stop being the visitor center, where we learned more about this volcano, and volcanos in general. Since we are apparently spending much of our summer exploring them, it’s nice to know that they do not erupt with no notice, and Mt. St. Helens was not an exception. I do remember when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, but I was a junior in college and sad to say, as self centered as most 20 year olds. I remember thinking at the time that it shouldn’t be a surprise? Doesn’t a volcano erupt on a regular basis? So, obviously, no. But it also wasn’t a surprise.

In  early 1980, Mount St. Helens appeared to be a very dormant volcano, but by late March, the earthquake activity had increased to the point that scientists were concerned that it was in a “pre-eruption” pattern, and the volcano was promptly closed to public access.

As time went on, earthquake activity continued to grow and escalate, causing the evacuation of residents within a 15 mile perimeter of the volcano.  Harmonic Tremors, which are essentially one earthquake after another, became prevalent.  They usually, but not always, forecast an eruption.

Unfortunately, enough time passed between the evacuations and the actual eruptions, that some people had been allowed back in to their homes to collect some belongings.

On May 18, 1980, the top 1300 feet of the volcano blew off in an eruption, sending ash plumes 15 miles into the sky, and creating a deep crater.

Within 2 weeks, ash from Mt. St. Helens circled the entire earth.

Rock and glacial ice slid down the side of the volcano, sending enough debris and mud into the Columbia River, that the depth was changed from 40 feet to 15 feet. creating a long term issue for ships using the river.

The history was fascinating to me, although its difficult for me to drill it down into 2 paragraphs, and have it make sense.

The eruptions of Mount St Helens also created 4 new lakes. One of them is Coldwater Lake, where we spent a morning hiking along the shore.

When this lake was created, it was full of mud, and debris, and smelled like garbage. If you put your hand into the water, it would disappear into the muck.

Luckily there are microorganisms that thrive in this environment, and within 3 years, the water was clear. I am sure that makes all the kayakers very happy.

Mt. Rainier West- Part 2 (9/15/24)

 Day 5

After hiking quite a few days in a row, we decided we needed to take a day off from it, so we looked for a scenic drive outside the park. There isn’t much, but we drove into the national forest anyway. It was pretty dense brush, with not much to see.

Every once in a while a view would open up, and we were able to see Mount St. Helens in the distance.

Cell phone cameras being what they are these days, I usually can’t justify carrying my small Panasonic camera around with me. Most times, I don’t even take my big camera either. The biggest difference in the pictures is if I want to zoom in on a subject. Playing around one day, I took some close ups of Mount Rainier. I would not have gotten these pictures with my phone.

I actually zoomed in on some “dots” on a glacier that turned out to be people hiking, but I deleted the picture by accident.

                                             Day 6

 

Part of the reason the parking lots at Paradise are always crowded is that many hiking trails start from there, so people don’t just come for an hour and then leave. Of course, one of the trails we wanted to hike originates from there, so we sucked it up and drove up the hill at 6:45 am. We got one of the last spots in the main lot. It also happens to be Labor Day weekend now, which didn’t help.

The trail we chose was Panorama Point. The name implies there might be a good view once you get there but in reality, the views started at the trailhead and never quit.

I kept thinking “follow the yellow brick road” during this part of the trail…

We saw more wildlife on this trail than we had seen all week-in fact, in this section a black bear cub ran across the trail between Paul and I. Everyone froze, waiting to see if mom came up behind him, but he was running so fast, I think she was ahead of him and he was catching up. Very cool.

We also saw a mountain goat, a deer, and several marmots.

At “Glacier Viewpoint” there were excellent views of the nearby …glaciers- we noticed after we took the pictures that although they are in color, they look like they are in black and white. There was a pretty cool waterfall across the way.

I think this was my favorite trail in the park- although it wasn’t that easy- 5 miles and 1500 ft of gain, there was a lot of bang for the buck in the view department. Paul’s favorite trail was the one we did the following day, our last day in the park.

                                                   Day 7

The trail to Comet Falls is 5 miles round trip, with 1600 feet of gain. So, a repeat of the day before. Luckily we are in better hiking shape now, so its manageable for us.

We passed several waterfalls along the way to Comet.

Of course, many times when hiking to a waterfall, you have to go UP- and this trail was no exception.

When we got to this one, we assumed it was Comet Falls, but in fact, we still had a quarter mile to go…

We finally made it- it was worth the effort.