Wednesday, June 27, 2012

"The Way West"...Day 15...Wednesday, June 27, 2012...The Day of Spectacular Views

When I was a boy, I read a lot of "adventure books"...books about explorers like Columbus, Livingston, Scott and Lewis & Clark. And I used to dream about what it must have been like for these people to travel to new places and see spectacular things. So, when you wonder why I ever got into camping, the answer is pretty simple. I'm just living out, in a small way, the dreams I had in my youth.

I wish that you could have been with me today.

Up at 6:00AM on a warm and sunny morning (finally!). There's a gas station next store, so I grab a large coffee and relax with a cigar in camp before getting on the road.
A little before 7:00AM, I'm heading twenty miles west on Route 14 to the town of Carson. There's fog hanging on the Gorge this morning, and it's beautiful. At Carson, I turn north on the Wind River Highway into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. It's named after a great conservationist and advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt. And...when President Roosevelt signed into law the act that created the National Service, he appointed Gifford Pinchot as it's first head.
It's an absolutely gorgeous morning...sunny and not a cloud in the sky. And, on this morning, I'm alone on the road. For almost fifty miles, I don't see another car...pure solitude.
So...I'm able to travel at my own speed (slow) and savor every foot of road as I head up, through forests of old growth trees, meadows of wildflowers, flowing rivers. It's a narrow and winding road...for me, one of the best drives ever.
Around 9:00AM, I reach the McClellan Viewpoint...and the parking lot is empty...I'm the only one there. And the view of Mt. St. Helens is, indeed, spectacular. If there is a piece of music associated with a particular place, I like to listen to it when I visit that place. So...I've listened to Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite while at the Grand Canyon...and Charles Ive's "The Housatonic at Stockbridge while looking out over the Housatonic River in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And...this morning, I have Alan Hovhaness' Mt. St. Helens Symphony all cued up on my iPod. So I sit there, with this great view, and I listen for a half hour...every note from beginning to end. Quite a moment there.
My original plan was to take Forest Road 25 further north to Mt. Rainier National Park, but the road is closed...snow! So, instead, I turn west on Forest Road 90, later Route 503, west. More trees, lakes, a huge reservoir, some deer...awesome.
Around 11:30, I'm at I-5, which I take north to the Mt. St. Helens Visitors Center. From there, I head back east to get views of Mt. St. Helens from a completely different angle. It starts out fine, but soon I'm heading up and up. On the "Bill Thee Pants Wetting Scale", it reaches an 8 as I'm driving on a narrow road at 2000 feet, then 3000...all the way up to 3800 at Elk Pass. Along the way, I've got to go over the half-mile long bridge across a 2500 foot deep gorge at Hoffstadt Creek...that gets an 8.5 on the "scale".
At Elk Pass, I've had enough...now I turn around and head back down to sea level. The good news is that I bought a small fan, and the driver's seat should be dry in just a few hours.
My plan now is to head north to Mt. Rainier National Park, where I'll be camping for a week or so...I'm even planning a backpacking trip for there. But, when I stop at the Mt. St. Helens Visitors Center on the way back, I'm told that there are a lot of detours on the way to Mt. Rainier because of snow...snow???...in late June??? Unfortunately, several people have told me that this is the latest summer in memory out here in the northwest. When I ask the nice lady at the Visitors Center about backpacking, she says absolutely...as long as I've brought along shoes. I'm thinking hiking shoes, but she's talking SNOWSHOES.
Wow...so I'm thinking that I don't want to get get stuck camping at Mt. Rainier late in the day if there's snow. So...as we speak...I am comfortably "ensconced" in a nice KOA Campground near the Visitors Center. Tomorrow, I'll go up to Mt. Rainier early and check things out. I'll probably camp there, but backpacking is out of the question.
Oh...by the way...for the first time on this trip, I'll be sleeping with the Glock 9mm under my pillow. There's a danger out here...a danger that I had not anticipated...and it's name is Bigfoot.

I wish that you could have been with me today.












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