Southwest Washington – Letterboxing

We drove back to the coast – to the southwest corner of Washington. 

Today’s agenda was letterboxing.  In case you don’t already know, letterboxes are hidden boxes containing a logbook and stamp found by following a set of clues.  Barbara enjoys letterboxing and this area has quite a few.  We could probably spend a week here just letterboxing, but in the interest of time Barbara chose to target a few highly recommended boxes.

It is hard to express how much Barbara appreciated the first series – the quality and creativity of the clue, box, hiding spot, and logbook were phenomenal.   Two special additional treats: meeting the planter of the letterbox and encouragement from Judy, the marvelous woman Barbara letterboxed with a month ago.

After lunch Bill and Barbara headed for another letterbox.  Barbara ended up needing to rest in the car.  When Bill arrived back at the car, what did he have, but the letterbox.  Another beautifully crafted box! 

Here are a few pictures from the rest of the day as we explored the Long Beach peninsula.

Washington - Mt St Helens – Ape Cave

The south side of Mt St Helens tells a very different story than the north side.  Mt St Helens and other Cascade range eruptions are generally explosive due to the high amount of silica in the magma. But about 1900 years ago, lava flowed from Mt St Helens like Hawaii’s volcanoes.  Some lava followed down a stream channel and the top layer cooled and hardened. When the molten lava underneath eventually drained, it left a long cave known as a lava tube. One of these lava tubes is Ape Cave on the south side of Mt St Helens, which is about 2.5 miles long.

We’ve seen many caves, but this was our first lava tube.  We had two options: the upper section (1.5 miles) with lots of rocks to negotiate or the easier lower section (0.75 miles).  Bill went through the upper section and Barbara went through the lower section.

The lower section and some of the upper section of the cave are just big tubes.

In parts of the upper section, rock from the ceiling fell after the lava drained, leaving a higher ceiling and a jumble of rocks in the tube.

Some sections were large, up to 88’ wide, and beyond the ability of a small camera flash.

Water beads on the ceiling and walls, glistening in the pictures, and intermittently falls in large drops. The temperature is 42 degrees in the cave even though the outside was over 80.

There are 2 “skylights” in the upper section where ceiling collapse opens to the outside. One has the ladder for the exit.

The next stop on our trip is letterboxing on the southern Washington coast.

Washington - Mt St Helens – Johnston Ridge

Most of our destinations are beautiful sites, but today’s outing focused on an event and its implications: the volcanic eruption of Mount Saint Helens on May 18, 1980.  Here is what the mountain looks like today.

Okay now here is what we want you to do.  Enlarge the picture.  (You can do that by clicking on the picture.)  Then hold your left index finger in line with the left side of the mountain and your right index finger in line with the right side of the mountain, with your fingers touching at the top. Well that is what the mountain used to look like.  It looked similar to Mt Fuji – fairly pointy. Not anymore – now it is a massive horseshoe-shaped crater.

We went to the Johnston Ridge Observatory where we heard an interesting ranger-led program. We also watched their excellent video, with computer graphics simulating the different stages of the eruption. At the end of the video, the screen rose dramatically to reveal the mountain.

The 1980 eruption released 24 megatons of energy or 1600 Hiroshima atomic bombs. The area around the mountain was evacuated, but the eruption was ten times larger than expected and 57 people were killed.  The north side of the mountain blew out, sending a landslide and scorching air sideways, creating the deadly lateral blast. Trees within 8 miles were incinerated, trees up to 19 miles were blown down, and trees shielded from the blast by topography or distance were seared and left standing. This picture shows all three.

Chunks of the mountain were hurled miles and are called hummocks, the light rocks in this picture.

Bill hiked to Harry’s Ridge, which gave views of Spirit Lake. The eruption raised the lake level 200’ and filled it with dead trees. After 34 years, many trees sunk, but others are still floating.

Bill summarizes his hike by rock, sun/wind, desolation, and life. Rock – rock is everywhere, gray dacite, white pumice, black basalt, all deposited by various eruptions, without much soil. Sun/wind – the area has almost no trees, the old trees are weathered stumps or trunks and few new trees have started, so there is no shield from the sun or wind. Desolation – large swaths of land are still barren and feel eerie and moonlike. Life – in this barrenness, life is creeping back, scrub bushes, coarse grass, and wildflowers are gaining a foothold. This picture tries to capture this juxtaposition of desolation and life – weathered stumps of incinerated trees surrounded by wildflowers in the foreground and barren swaths with some green areas in the background.

Washington - Mt Rainier – Sunrise

There are several ways to approach Mt Rainier.  Most people come in through the southwestern corner and head to the region known as Paradise.  That is where we’ve been most of our stay, but today we took the two hour drive around the mountain to the northeastern section of Mt Rainier known as Sunrise.  Lots of switchbacks, cliffs, and elevation changes along the way, but the scenery was great as the road was designed to take advantage of the view.

We were told that the subalpine flowers at Sunrise were near peak, so we are glad we had an opportunity to be there at this time. The fields and even exposed rocky outcrops were filled with color. 

We stopped at Emmons Vista. 

We were warned about bears in the area and someone we met on the trail saw one 10 minutes prior, but we didn’t see any as we made our way to Glacier Overlook, where we had our lunch.

Following a ranger recommendation, Bill continued on to Second Burroughs. It’s far enough from Mt. Rainier that the whole mountain is visible, but it feels much closer than the pictures capture – like you can reach out and touch the mountain. Several glaciers are prominent.

Mt. Rainer is such a stunning and dominant feature that it’s easy to overlook beautiful vistas in the opposite direction. This picture is from the Mt. Fremont fire lookout.

And on the way back, Frozen Lake.

No swimming here.

All in all it was a glorious hike and well worth the trip around the mountain.

Washington - Mt Rainier – Seeing the Summit

We scheduled six nights for Mt Rainier, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Yesterday when it was still rainy we started wondering if it really was a good idea after all.  But today was the reward: after four nights here, we woke up to clear blue skies and a view of the summit!

                                              

Some of Skyline trail was closed due to snow, but Panorama Point and Camp Muir were accessible via Deadhorse Creek trail and upper Skyline trail. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe the panoramic views.  One could see the glacier-capped summit,

Mt St Helens,

Mt Adams,

and alpine meadows.  If you look very closely in this next picture you might be able to see the Visitor Center and Paradise Inn way below in the picture.

Starting at about 5400ft, we climbed to near Panorama Point (6800ft).  Then Bill continued climbing to 8200ft on the Muir Camp trail, then veering off to a ridge for a spectacular lunch spot.  The trail above Pebble Creek is an uphill snowfield climb where you can hear the frequent crack of ice moving higher on the mountain and see an occasional plume of snow caused by falling ice. The first picture is from the ridge looking back at the visitor center and the second picture is looking across the snowfield to some of the many backpacking teams headed to Muir Camp for the night on their way to the summit.  10,000 hikers attempt to summit it annually.

By afternoon, a cloud clung to the west side of the mountain top, so we are so glad we hiked when we did. Tomorrow the weather is predicted to be good and we hope to see the Sunrise area of the park.

Washington - Mt Rainier – “Mt Rainy-er”

We didn’t write a post for yesterday as it was so rainy we hibernated.  Barbara drove about an hour to civilization for food, gas, and connectivity, but that was about it for our activities.  Interestingly we had written “REST” on the calendar for that day.  So that’s what we did.

The next day started out dreary, but by the afternoon it looked like the sky was trying to clear.  So we decided to hike the Wonderland Trail.  The 93-mile Wonderland Trail circles Mt Rainier with a sum total of 23,000 ft elevation change.  Needless to say we only did a tiny portion of it aiming for two waterfalls.

Here is a rock tower along the riverbed.

 

This bridge made Barbara a bit nervous as she looked down at the fast-flowing, glacier-fed Nisqually River below.

Carter Falls

Madcap Falls

We were curious about an old wooden pipe wrapped in metal cable. Bill traced it and found a break, so it is not used anymore. Longmire had a hydroelectric plant in the early 1900's that piped water from higher on the mountain to generate electricity. We think that's what this was.

Hoping for sunshine tomorrow.  :-)

Washington - Mt Rainier – Flowers & Falls in Paradise

“Oh, what a Paradise!” That is what an early settler proclaimed when she came to this subalpine meadow on Mt Rainier.  So we are in the Paradise section of Mount Rainier National Park.  It is known for its views.  Most of the day the views were obscured by rain and clouds.  Nevertheless we found things to do.

We walked to Myrtle Falls.

We followed the path even over snow (it’s July 22!) to the viewpoint for Nisqually Glacier.  We didn’t see too much of the glacier, but saw lots of alpine flowers.

Bill hiked 5.6 miles (2,200ft elevation gain) on Comet Falls trail and Van Trump Park, seeing a high (300’?) cascading waterfall and subalpine meadows. With over 50’ average snowfall per winter, the trees grow tall with short branches.

Barbara went to Christine Falls

and Narada Falls.

At the end of the day, when the sky was beginning to clear we could see some of Mt Rainier.

Most days we try to write a post. Yesterday we didn’t as it was a travel and logistics day.  And wifi is about an hour away so we may not post for a little while.

Washington - Olympic National Park – Hoh & beaches

“Hi Ho, Hi Ho. It’s off to Hoh we go…”

We headed first to the Hoh Rainforest, a different section of Olympic National Park.  Now you would think when you get to a rainforest that it might rain.  Just the opposite for us -- when we got to the rainforest it stopped raining.  We would have hiked anyway, but it is nice to hike in dry weather.  The trails highlight the unique aspects of a Pacific Northwest rainforest, most of which we’ve seen already along this trip. 

Here a dead log became a “nurse log,” then the log decayed, leaving only the roots of the new trees. Rain forest undergrowth is often so dense that tree seedlings can only start on a log.

This maple grove is nothing like maple groves back east.

We next headed to Ruby Beach.  We loved the rock formation: the natural ones

and the man-made ones.

We even got to see a family of otters.

Then we went to Beach 4 (someone has to think of a cleverer name for this beach).

Our campsite for the evening at Kalaloch is near another beach.  We can’t see the beach from our site, but we can hear the ocean and we took a quick walk to it.  Here it is.

Even though it is mid-July nighttime temperatures are still in the 50s.  We’ll see what temperatures are as we leave the Olympic peninsula tomorrow.