Washington and Oregon, June-July 2007

We spent the last two weeks in June and the first two weeks of July, 2007, mostly in northern Washington. We were worried that a month in our tiny trailer would be too much. It wasn't. We started out on the Olympic Peninsula in the Ho Rain Forest:



Our "RV park" was in back of a remote café; the elk paraded across every morning and evening:



We took a hike along the South Fork of the Ho River on a misty day; we hiked for eight hours and didn't see another person. The ferns were enormous -- -- more like trees than bushes:



We discovered that the horsetail ferns had an intricate radial structure when viewed from above:



We then moved to the northern part of the peninsula, staying in the Elwha Dam area. Sol Duc Falls was very impressive:



One afternoon in Port Angeles, we spotted this "wildlife" creature calmly sifting through a garbage can:



On a snowy morning, we went up to Hurricane Ridge. The marmots were striking noble poses for us:



Across a snowy meadow, we saw a deer and her fawn. The fawn suddenly realized that his mother had gotten too far ahead of him:











From the top of Hurricane Ridge, we could see the skyline of the central Olympic Range:





After about a week in the Olympics, we took the ferry over to the Bellingham area and then camped in a primitive campground near Mount Baker. If you click on this picture, you should be able to see the glacier:



Several of the hikes in this area were pretty snowy; sometimes, we had to turn back because of avalanche chutes. But the snow caves were rapidly melting:



As soon as the snow would melt, the wildflowers popped out. These are glacier lilies:



And these are penstemon:



The columbines were everywhere:



On a snowy and windy afternoon, we decided to go for a "snowshoe hike" up on Mount Baker:



Everywhere we looked, there were waterfalls and streams; I don't think that we were ever away from the sound of running water:



In early July, the weather warmed up, and we headed for the Central Cascades. This is a view from Sauk Mountain, toward Canada:



Mount Baker, which was now to our north, looked a lot different in the sunshine:



We hiked up Cascade Pass. The trail passed Johannesberg Glacier, which was shedding large blocks of ice into the canyon. It sounded like thunder:



Along the trail, there were fields of leopard lilies:



We later headed over to the east side of the Cascades to Leavenworth. It was very hot, but the streams and waterfalls were lovely:



We left Leavenworth earlier than we had planned (because of the heat) and headed over to the Snoqualmie Pass area. This is Franklin Falls:



One evening, we went to Snoqualmie Falls and saw a spectacular sunset:

Sequoia National Park, May 2007

We took a quick trip up to Sequoia. Most of the trails were pretty snowy. On our long hike to Heart Lake above Lodgepole, we didn't have snowshoes and had to "post hole" through deep soft wet snow (in other words, our boots punctured the crust and our footprints looked like post holes). But our first view of the lake made it all worthwhile:



There was no one else for miles around, and the lake was still partially frozen:



On our drive back to the Montecito resort, we passed a couple of early-season bears tearing up a log, looking for grubs:





We took a short hike to Lost Grove. Click on the picture and look carefully at the ground between the bases of the trees:

Mendocino and Santa Ynez, April 2007

During Spring Break of 2007, we stopped off to do some bike riding in the Santa Ynez Valley. The poppies were going strong:

This is Felice's favorite oak tree on Happy Canyon Road:

We camped for several days near Fort Bragg. This is a trillium:

The rides in Russian Gulch and Van Damme State Park were mostly along the streams:

The rhododendrons were growing amongst the redwoods:

Yosemite, January 2007

Felice and I spent the first several days of 2007 in Yosemite, hiking and snowshoeing. The first view of the valley after Wawona Tunnel is always exciting. [Remember to click on the pictures to see them full size.]

















One evening, we hiked up the south wall of the valley and watched Half Dome turn orange in the sunset.









In honor of Ansel Adams, I turned a couple of the pictures into black and whites. Here is the full moon rising over Half Dome.











These snowy boulders were reflected in the Merced River.













This herringbone pattern was made by a few slanting logs reflected in the river.
















We snowshoed up to a fire lookout tower near Crane Flat. Apparently, a mountain lion got there before we did.
















The day before we left, it snowed several inches. The next morning, we took a hike near our cabin. The trees and bushes were all coated with snow and ice.

Northern Calif & Oregon Cascades, July 2006

Felice and I spent much of July in the redwoods of Northern California and in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. We stayed for three weeks in our tiny trailer, and it was (amazingly) very comfortable and a lot of fun. A day by day description of the trip would be very repetitive -- lots of hiking and biking along beautiful streams, through the trees, in the mountains. [Remember to click on the pictures to see a bigger version -- the pictures look a little better blown up.]

We started out in Northern California. Although the coastal redwoods are not as massive as the Sierra Sequoias on an individual basis, they are much more numerous, and they grow in lush surroundings. They tend to cluster in family groupings -- this is on the James Irvine trail in Prairie Creek:


This is the same shot, edited much later in Lightroom:

Some of the state parks (and national forests) permit mountain biking on selected trails through the redwoods and along the rivers. These are "singletrack" trails, which tend to be challenging -- full of roots and rocks. But it was a pleasure to be able to ride through the deep forest on narrow paths cushioned with bark chips and leaves:

We spent a lot of time taking pictures of wildflowers. (In fact, we have about 800 pictures; be glad we aren't posting more than just a fraction of them.) Here is a small sample:


Columbia Lily


Lupine


Some tall pink flower - fireweed, I think.

On our honeymoon in 1978, we spent some time at Clear Lake, east of Eugene, Oregon, and we were happy to discover that the lake is still as blue as it was back then:


Clear Lake

After riding and hiking in central Oregon, we went north to the Columbia Gorge. There are probably 20 or more major waterfalls in the Gorge, and we hiked to virtually all of them. Again, it would be redundant to post pictures of all of them; here is a representative sample:


This is the same shot, edited much later in Lightroom, which enabled me to correct the white balance:

I could not resist including more waterfall shots -- the falls are everywhere throughout the Gorge, and Felice just could not get enough of them, especially because the weather was hot and the falls cooled the air:

We hiked to Tunnel Falls on a hot day (a 14 mile hike!). There is a tunnel immediately behind the thundering waterfall:



This is the same shot, edited much later in Lightroom:

There were other falls with trails behind the water -- Felice is right in the middle of the shot, between the two halves of the falls:

We next stayed at Mt. Hood, an 11,000 foot volcano not too far south of the Gorge:



Mt. Hood and Bear Grass

The wildflowers (mostly lupine and Indian paintbrush) were just getting started on the mountain, since the snow had recently melted:


Lupine on Mt. Hood

Santa Cruz Redwoods, June 2006

in June of 2006, we spent several pleasant days hiking and biking in the redwoods near Santa Cruz. We stayed in our little trailer, in a quiet RV park across the river from Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.




This is typical of the mountain biking that we did each day. There are several former railroad grades or logging roads that wind through the forest for many miles, generally contouring along the hillsides and across small creeks.




Many of the smaller redwood trees were showing a lot of new growth (the lighter green vegetation) after a season of heavy rain.





Because of all the rain, little "Tiptoe Falls" was flowing pretty well. I took this time exposure (at about a 15th of a second), using a handy stick as an improvised monopod.





It was a good season for wildflowers. This is a wild iris.




We aren't sure what this is. Goldenrod, perhaps?