Back from the Northwest

Hi readers - time for an update! We just recently returned from a trip to the Great Pacific Northwest where we spent a fun-filled few days with Kate's family (parents, sibings, and nieces and nephews and all) and then did some exploring on our own to break up the long drive back. Yes, we drove up to Seattle, in part because we were bringing the dogs. And yes, I said dogs (plural) because in addition to Banjo we brought up the cute little puppy that Kate adopted down here for her sister's family (as they had been unsuccessful this year in a search for a small terrier-type breed from a rescue/shelter in the Seattle area). So our drive up was pretty much a straight through blast, complete with a comfortable night spent in the back of the Subaru at the Roseburg, OR Wal-Mart parking lot (the price is right!). Unfortunately my camera went on the fritz and died right at the beginning of this trip, so you'll have to make do with these pictures from the internets that I think represent our travels.

The puppy delivery went well and while it was very fun to have a well-behaved and adorably small puppy around the house for a week, we are happy to see Kate's sister (and especially her dog-loving niece) get to have a dog of their own now. We think that Clover (as she's now named) will miss Banjo a little more than vice-versa, especially given Banjo's sudden increase in toy protectiveness that coincided with the puppy's arrival. They did play quite nice together, and it was really a blast to watch the two of them rough-house around outside or play-fight over a stuffy-toy.

Little Clover, back when she was just "puppy."

The big family gathering was at a gorgeous house we all rented for the big group in Union, WA - right on the Hood Canal at the SE end of the Olympic peninsula. This gave us great access to some beautiful spots like Twanoh State Park - a charming Depression-era CCC park project right on the water and with some lovely rainforesty trails - and the Staircase area of Olympic National Park. Kate and I tackled the thigh-burning Mt. Ellinor hike one morning, with 2,500" of vertical in the last mile to the summit! I even shared a shady nook on the summit crags with a mountain goat as I ate lunch, but as it turns out these goats are not uncommon in Olympic these days and are even becoming a nuisance.

One of the neat CCC-built buildings at Twanoh SP

The view from atop Mt. Ellinor N to Mt. Washington Some of the ubiquitous Olympic NP mountain goats with whom I shared the summit (the photo is from the top of Ellinor, too)

Some of the highlights of the family portion of our trip were the delicious meals we all took turns making each night, the lovely view over the water from the house's deck each evening, making exciting waterside or rainforesty discoveries with the nieces and nephews, a fun-filled day jumping off inflatable floats and boats at a nearby freshwater lake, and of course some game-playing with the adults after bedtime.

When the time eventually came for us to disperse again, Kate, Banjo, and I headed North to drive around the Olympic Peninsula and see some of the other areas in the National Park. First stop was Hurricane Ridge, an incredibly scenic ~15 mile drive up into the hills from Port Angeles terminating in a gorgeous alpine playground with several short trails to choose from. Unfortunately dogs aren't allowed on any of them so Banjo had to wait in the car while we took in some of the scenery. That may have been a good thing, as we saw a bear (!) just munching on some grass in between some of the paved "near the visitor center" style trails there! Alas, no pictures of the bear.

Some representative pictures of Hurricane Ridge

After Hurricane Ridge our intent was to head to the coast and camp at Kalaloch, a section of the park that covers the coastline, but we arrived to find out that both the regular and "primitive" campgrounds were both full (on a Thursday). Who knew! We took a nice long walk on the wide, foggy Kalaloch beach and let Banjo romp around in glee. Watching our dog run around on the sand, happily sprinting from one intriguing scent to the next and back to us was definitely a highlight of the trip - marred only by the fact that about 5 minutes before our hike was done he somehow managed to find a dead seagull to roll around in before we could get him off of it. Yick. Dead-seagull-covered Banjo with about 15 hours of driving left to do in the next two days. Fortunately we had a bathroom nearby at the lodge and a spare towel, so the little guy was punished for his transgressions with an impromptu bath.

Kalaloch Beach and Rocks, the latter of which were mostly obscured by the fog while we were there, but the beach itself was beautiful and eerie.

That we were denied a campsite at Kalaloch turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as our Plan B was driving a little further down to the Quinault Rain Forest area of Olympic NP. Here we found a fantastic campground with some easy walk-in sites right along a creek and a stone's throw from a lakeshore with lots of privacy thanks to the rain-foresty surroundings. We cooked up a quick dinner, made some s'mores, and cozied up in the tent happy we weren't stuck amongst the hoardes of RVs at Kalaloch.

One of the waterfalls near our Falls Creek campsite in the Quinault Rainforest area

The next day we packed up early and headed south, destination: Crater Lake. After a lunch stop in Portland at Corbett's Fish House for some delicious fish tacos, we veered East off I-5 for some scenic driving over the Oregon Cascades and south towards Crater Lake. We arrived at the lake around sunset and after taking in a couple viewpoints we found out yet again that the campground was full here too (despite a ranger telling me on the phone the day before that "that campground almost never fills up). This time Plan B was another NF campground about 10 miles away, but in 3-4 miles on dirt fire roads. After a turning off onto the NF roads we saw a couple signs directing us to a campsite but those signs quickly stopped and we drove on through the forest wondering what we'd find. Eventually we saw a little spur with a small sign identifying it as "Huckleberry Hill" so we thought we'd try that. This road wasn't grated and quickly turned into a rocky tree-strewn 4x4 road that was just about as much as my Subaru could handle, with Kate helping to pull fallen trees just enough out of the way so I could drive past. But all's well that ends well and we made it to the top of "Huckleberry Hill" which afforded us a really nice viewpoint over towards the rim of Crater Lake and the surrounding area. Interestingly you can see where we ended up in the bottom left of this map from the NPS, and also Google seems to have the dirt roads identified too - we ended up at the end of the spur road in the little clearing shown here. A quick camp-stove dinner, another nice campfire and s'more s'mores were followed by a night filled with crystal clear stars in the sky and visits from the local deer population (which Banjo found some combination of interesting and frightening). Again, everything seemed to work out nicely for us.

After Huckleberry Hill we went back up to Crater Lake early in the morning to get our fill of hiking and sightseeing in before finishing the drive home. Crater Lake was pretty amazing - the water is incredibly blue, the thousand-foot walls down to the lake staggeringly steep and severe, and of course Wizard Island in the middle is so quintessentially volcanic it almost looks like a middle-schooler's baking soda and vinegar science fair project. Views are unique from every vantage point around the lake, making the hike around the rim particularly interesting. Also making that hike interesting was the necessary attention to not trip and fall a thousand feet down cliffs into the lake - it really is right on the rim for a significant portion of the trail, at least for the ~5 miles I hiked on it between the visitor center and the Watchman overlook.

(I'll add some pictures of Crater Lake later)

After circling the lake and taking in some more viewpoints and a couple short little hikes we continued south through Oregon and California, had lunch in the shadow of impressive Mt. Shasta, and made it back safe and sound!

All in all a great trip despite the lots of driving. A few good books on tape and good company in the passenger seat helps there. I'm glad we got to see family and some natural highlights of the Pacific Northwest in the same trip, but it's always good to be back home too. Hopefully my new camera will arrive soon so I can get back to photo-enhanced blogging. Kate, was there anything I forgot that's worth mentioning?