For unknown reasons, campgrounds in the National Parks do not have wifi hotspots. Thus this post is being written in a campground in Mt. Rainier NP, but will be posted at a later day. If you just read the previous 2 sentences, this has now happened.
The good news is I can sit here in my truck, at my laptop with music and type this. Which is something I haven’t had the ability to do before. I’ve stayed in hotels every night so far, so I was due for a “sleep in the truck” night. This is my typical way of doing things as I will often drive 8-10-12 hrs to where every I’m going, then crash for a few hours in the truck. It’s quick and cheap. Stay in a hotel the next night, or when ever I find one again. Which is a common issue. I’m currently in the southeast corner of Mt. Rainer. There are no towns for miles, so no hotel as an option. This is how it goes.
If you’re wondering why I would be at a campground and not pitch a tent, well. Tents suck. They take time to put up and take down, are just as small as being in the truck, but cold, damp, lumpy, don’t have built in lighting, heating, etc. Further, since I make camp after dark, it’s just darn hard to put up a tent, and in the morning it takes time to take down and is wet, so this is so much simpler. I wanted to buy an SUV when vehicle shopping, but they are just too expensive. They would be easier to camp in. As with the truck I need to do a complicated metamorphous moving everything around to make a little nest in. It’s like those puzzle games where you move a block one at a time sliding it around till you unscramble it all, made hard as I’m inside the truck doing things. This was worse because I have more stuff in the truck than normal due to moving. Anyways, got it done. Maybe someday I will build a hybrid electric 4x4 VW Microbus / type 2 deal, but not today. Anyways…..
So I left Portland this morning and got into Washington State. About 50 miles in, you turn off onto a road built to take you to Mt. St. Helens. Very nice road. Unlike the usual mountain switchback style road into a park, this is a 60 mile drive on nice road (till it dead ends). It takes a while, but you eventually end up at the Johnson Ridge Observatory. It’s named after the Geologist who had the best view of the May 18th, 1980 event. He yelled “this is it” on the radio and that was the end of him. So if you get vaporized by a Volcano and where well liked, you might get something named after you. Kind of weird standing there as the dust of him is still drifting around that spot.
Johnson Ridge Observatory
The drive out you get great views of the volcano, get to see much of the devastation. A lot of it has been re-planted by the tree companies who owned the land before and lost their stands in the disaster. They replanted and will start cutting again next year. They have signs along the road with the year when they planted them. Amazing how well they grow in that soil in such a short time. Probably they massive amounts of rain here help. At the observatory you are a couple miles away, but it fills your whole view. It’s pretty amazing to get that kind of view and see how big it was/is. Of course the big hole left in it is being filled back in as new magma pushed things back up. It will blow again someday. It’s a bit of an out of the way place to get to, but really something to see. I’ve been to Mt. Lassen which blew in the early part of last century. There most everything has re-grown, so you don’t see much. Here a lot of it looks like it just happened still. I doubt those who live in Portland of Seattle enjoy going there, as such a thing is just a matter of when, not if when Hood and Rainer respectively blow. It’s also sad as St. Helens was a very very nice looking mountain. Nature doesn’t care. It also just re-enforces why one should go see things sooner than later, they may not be there. I saw an Arch in Arches National Park not long before it fell. And Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire a few years before it fell. World isn’t static, if you wait, some things will be gone.
Down Stream from Helens
From St. Helens I continued the Geological Zit tour and headed to Mt. Rainier NP. This one is still together. And boy is it nice. I caught the Ken Burns National Park Series on PBS just before leaving on this trip, one of the folks in it, talked about it to length and how he had been there over 190 times. It’s no wonder, it’s impressive, and has just magical forest around it. Soon as you approach the entrance it’s a wall of fir trees. One has to wonder if light ever makes it to the forest floor. As no ray be not embraced by the flora. Massive fir trees, ferns and other undergrowth abounds. There is no light left to light it up. Snake through the deep woods, up along a glacial river, a giant boulder field that certainly changes every day. Waterfalls feed by the melt. The road gets you up high, giving you a great view. I got there before sunset, so had a good show. Most things here are now closed for season. I drove down to the other side of the park, one eye driving, and the other looking out for Sasquatch, do I hit one if I see one, just to end the mystery? Does my insurance cover collisions with crypto zoology based creatures, would a Sasquatch sue me for pain and suffering and in-ability to support his family? And of course, what exposure should I have my camera pre-set for. Based on most images, I’m think there should be a “bigfoot” scene mode, which makes the image grainy and blurred, and places shrubs/trees in front of him.
Mt. Rainier
I got down to a park exit, and elected to camp. Thought about doing some night shots, but I want to get some sleep, it’s been late nights so far. I’ll get up in the morning and get a good run on getting to Olympia NP. Will also get to see more of the park this way. It’s very dark here, there is dark, and then there is Cascade Range National Park dark. Crater Lake is super dark at night (you can see more stars there than you can dream up), Lassen too is isolated so it’s dark. And here, you have such deep forest and remote-ness it too is dark. Moon/Star light doesn’t make it down to the ground. One neat thing was the camp registration station actually took credit card. In the end it didn’t work, but it was a step in the right direction. It was like what you see in a Parking Garage. Normally, you have do have exact change (cash) which never happens, or write a check, which often one forgets ones check book. So this will be great if this works out in the long run. Still, I don’t understand why the NPS doesn’t just allow some “sleep in car” spots for free. You can park just about anyplace in a National Park and leave the car for days/weeks/months. But try to sleep in that parked car in the same spot for just a few hours, and you are in trouble.
Night view from my campsite (looking up)
So tomorrow I should make it from Mt. Rainier which I’m very impressed with. To Olympia NP, which has been one of my biggies to get too. I hope it doesn’t disappoint. After that one, my last biggy on my list will be its opposite, Arcadia in Maine. Olympia will be my 25th national park, and 5th this year. By the end of this trip, I may have gone to 8 NP for the first time this year. Including others I have been to before this year, I will have visited 12 NPs in a year, not bad.
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