|
|
2006 Pacific Northwest Vacation -- July 23 through August 12, Part 1
2006 Pacific Northwest Vacation Links: Index
 |
| My 2006 Pacific Northwest Vacation. Highlights included Lewis and Clark, the Tetons, Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, and a bunch of volcanoes. Lowlights included a motorcycle rally, a broken exhaust pipe and my car getting bit by a bear. 21 days, 6,700 miles. |
Now the last really big empty space on my travel map, was the Pacific Northwest. A couple of my other travel goals, was to see a bunch of Lewis and/or Clark sites and spend some time in Grand Teton National Park.
So, I had to make a choice. I got out my two-headed quarter, flipped it, and amazingly enough, it came up heads. The trip got the green light, and some plans were made.
This would be, the trip of Great Experiments.
Experiment 1: Staying on-site. Well, staying inside the park boundaries as much as possible.
Experiment 2: Hi-Def video. I had a camcorder that shoots 1080i, with an add on wide angle lens.
Experiment 3: Go during tourist season. Late July/Early August.
I admit, this trip was just too long. It was the second cross-country trip in two years, with a sidetrip to Florida just for laughs. Maybe it was that side trip to Glacier National Park...
Oh, and for the record, don't *ever* plan a trip near the Black Hills (and I'm talking within 250 miles of the place) during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, unless you want your trip ruined. The entire area around the Black Hills will be overrun by bikers for a distance of some 50 miles around Sturgis, and there won't be any hotel rooms for a radius of maybe 150 miles. I would even avoid Yellowtone and Grand Teton during that time.
If I'd known when I planned the trip, I would have planned a different route.
I was on my own until I got to Seattle. A cross country drive by my lonesome. Well, it's not like I haven't travelled by myself before, and I'm a pretty well seasoned traveller. I checked the places I wanted to stop, figured out a timetable, and gave myself five days to get there. I should have given myself six. I always underestimate the sights to see across this country.
July 23, 2006, Day 1
Day one, like most of my Road Trips, was to get as far away from Chicago as possible. By the end of the day, I was in Jamestown, North Dakota, where I stopped for the night.
Not coincidentally, Frontier Village is there; a charming, little tourist trap which features the World's Largest Buffalo, and a bunch of old buildings from the North Dakota plains. In 1996, this place was my introduction to the Western Interstate Tourist Attraction, the entrepeneurs who stake out a claim along the interstates and try to make a few tourist bucks.
Since I was last there, the National Buffalo Museum had been built, and they had an albino buffalo on property named White Cloud.
Very cool. A good omen, in just about every Native American culture.
Frontier Village / North Dakota
Back to Top
July 24, 2006, Day 2
2006 was still the bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery's historic trip. By 1806, Lewis and Clark and company were already making their way back, but that hasn't stopped all of the sites from cashing in on the bicentennial.
I was reading Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage and pretty much knew all the places I wanted to go. (If you want an excellent overview of The Corps of Discovery's journey, Undaunted Courage is an excellent read.) To do it right would take months, but I could probably do the high points in a few days. I could, after all, travel a hundred times faster, and in more comfort than William or Merriweather could ever fathom.
The first stop I had on the Lewis and Clark Trail, was Fort Mandan, an accurate reproduction (but in an approximate location) of the fort The Corps used during their first winter in 1804-1805. I just can't imagine not having indoor plumbing when it's 30 below zero outside. Yeah, I'm a wimp.
Now, it's a Monday morning, and I'm 30 miles North of Bismark, North Dakota, and I finally find the North Dakota Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. You'd think this place would be empty. But there's a tour bus of some sort here, and you can barely get through the Visitors center. But, like the weather, you wait 15 minutes, and all those pesky tourists are gone.
I ask the girl at the gift shop if the bus went to the fort. Yes. So, I hang back, take some pictures, and then drive down to the fort. The bus group is out at the fort, and I start by watching a introduction movie in the visitors center with... Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan and Steven Ambrose!
During the movie, you can hear the bus tourists shuffle back into the visitors center, and it gets quiet. After the movie ends, it's a few minutes before a guide is ready, and I get a private tour of the fort. Tour bus, foiled again.
Fort Mandan
Back to Top
I had seen this creature twice before, in 1998 and 2001. I finally kept my wits about me and looked for it, and got off the interstate to get a better look. I even paid a dollar to see it.
I could get nightmares from this thing. But I've seen it, and I can prove it. :-) Her name (and it is a her) is Salem Sue, and at 38 feet high and 50 feet long, she's the World's Largest Holstein Cow, weighing in at 12,000 pounds. She was erected in 1974, at a cost of $40,000. There's a half dozen facts you probably didn't know this morning.
Salem Sue
Back to Top
This was the third time through Theodore Roosevelt National Park (having passed through in both 1996 and 2001,) which is easy, since I-94 passes right through the park. This time through, I actually got inside Cross Cabin, the actual cabin (but moved from another location) that TR himself slept in. I only have video of the interiors, but there are pictures of the cabin itself on my 2001 West Trip page...
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Back to Top
July 25, 2006, Day 3
William Clark originally named this rock "Pompy's Tower" for Sacagawea's son Jean Baptiste, who was nicknamed Pompy by the Corps. Over the years the name morphed into Pompeys Pillar, like some 200 year old game of telephone.
I planned to come to this place, since it's the only physical evidence of the Corps' westward journey. Some graffitti Clark scratched into the rock on July 25, 1806. Purely by accident, I arrived at the rock on July 25, 2006, the bi-centennial of the event. It was a circus.
Anyway, it's a 200 foot high rock on the Yellowstone River, allowing views for miles in every direction. They have a new visitor's center, that has a neat floor. It's a representaion of the Yellowstone River, with markings of the Corps of Discovery's journey in that July, 200 years ago...
On a personal note, since the Monument was a circus, I got to do some off-roading in my car, and was forced to park in a corn field. I suspect this is where a crack in my exhaust pipe started, which grew steadily worse throughout the trip. By the time I was in Seattle, the car was getting pretty darn loud.
Pompeys Pillar National Monument
Back to Top
Great Falls and the associated chain of waterfalls was an enormous obsticle for the Corps, who had to portage thousands of pounds of canoes and supplies over rough terrain that was covered with prickly pear cactus. Now, the river is damed, and the falls are...gone. It was probably the second worse part of Lewis and Clark's journey. What they thought would only take a couple of days, took three months.
Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, (not so) Great Falls, MT
Back to Top
July 26, 2006, Day 4
I had a choice between Three Forks, another Lewis and Clark site, where the Missouri River is formed at the confluence of the Jefferson, Madison and Gallitin Rivers. Or, I could go to Glacier National Park. Three Forks was sorta on my way to Lolo Pass, where the Corps crossed the Bitterroot Mountains. Glacier National Park, however, was 100 miles out of my way.
But, as someone once wrote, "What's a hundred miles in Montana?"
Glacier National Park is a magnificent park. I was here for two days back in September 2001. On July 26th, I would be there for 4.5 hours. A quick trip across the park, down The Going To The Sun road, and back down South to Missoula, Montana.
Might have been stupid, but I got some beautiful images...
Glacier National Park
Back to Top
July 27, 2006, Day 5
Now if you were reading back in Great Falls, and was wondering about the worst part of the Corps journey, here it is. Lolo Pass, and crossing the Bitterroot Mountains.
Of course, US-12 didn't exist back in 1805. Pity. It would have made the journey so much easier.
Back in 1805, Merriweather Lewis approached what he thought was the continental divide, the spine of mountains where on one side, all the water flowed East to the Mississippi River, and the other to the Pacific Ocean. He thought he would see what what he had already travelled, a gentle slope to the West, to the Columbia River, and there was even a chance he could see the Pacfic Ocean. An easy portage of perhaps a day, where he could float the canoes to the sea. That's what all the geographers of the day told him, and what everyone believed.
He reached the top of the ridge... And saw more mountains. Mountain after mountain after mountain. Mountains with permanent snowpacks. Mountains that dwarfed the mountains of the East. Patrick Gass, described them in his journal as "The most terrible mountains I ever beheld." At that moment the hope and belief of man since the time of Columbus, of an easy passage between Europe and Asia, died.
Today, US-12 through the Bitterroots in Idaho is called the Lewis and Clark Trail, The Northwest Passage Scenic Byway, and the Nez Pierce Trail. For the most part, it follows the Lochsa River, before merging with the Selway River to form the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River.
Through this passage are also portions of the Nez Perce National Historical Park. I stopped in at the Heart of the Monster, the legendary birth place of the Nez Perce people.
That aside, it's a beautiful drive, and one of the last places I've been that you can't pick up a cell phone signal. It's probably in my top 10 drives. Definately in my top 25 drives. I'll let you know when I come up with a list.
Lolo Pass, Northwest Passage Scenic Byway, Idaho
Back to Top
This is the Columbia River Gorge. No, not that Columbia River Gorge. This one is in Washington alone, and is actually a power generation lake. It's immense.
Driving across Washington to Seattle did show me one thing. The amount of volcanic activity that occured in this region. Across the river from this point is Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, where the trees were entombed in once-molten lava dating back 15 million years. I should have stopped, but I was out of time. I had to be in Seattle that night.
Columbia River Gorge, Washington
Back to Top
July 28 & 29, 2006, Day 6 & 7
You have two choices leaving Seattle to Olympic National Park. You can drive South around Puget Sound, about a 50 mile detour, or you could take a Ferry.
We took the Ferry. The first time my car has been on a boat over water since it was delivered from Japan five years earlier. I wonder if it realized that. :-)
Olympic National Park is in the extreme Northwest part of the country, and features...the Olympic Mountain chain. While the peaks aren't particularly high, the tallest is Mount Olympus at 7980 feet, they are unusual. They rise to that height from sea level in about 30 miles. Since they're a coastal mountain range, the moisture from the ocean hits the Western slope of the mountains forming rain forests that recieve 12 *feet* of rain per year. It has over 50 miles of unspoiled coastline along the Washington coast. It is home to some of the tallest trees in the world, and is home to the Thunderbird, who lives in a cave at the source of the Hoh River on Mount Olympus.
Our first foray into Olympic National Park was up Hurricane Ridge, one of the more popular roads into the park. In some 17 miles, the road climbs from 400 to over 5200 feet, and offers views of the Olympic chain.
It was one of those magical drives. It stared with the sky overcast, it had rained off and on all morning. As the road climbed, it climbed into the clouds, and thus into fog. Fog so thick that sometimes visibility could be described in yards.
Then we passed through a tunnel that went through the Klahhane Ridge, and burst into sunlight, above the clouds, where we could look down at them and watch them engulf nearby peaks. We were on top of the world...
After leaving Hurricane Ridge, we followed US-101 West to Lake Cresent, where we stopped for lunch, and took a few pictures. It's one of those deep, clear, mountain lakes...
Olympic National Park, Hurricane Ridge
Back to Top
The Hoh relate a tale of an epic struggle between the Thunderbird and the Whale. The Thunderbird is a large bird of monsterous size, and when he opens and shuts his eyes, he makes lightning; when he flaps his wings, he makes thunder and great winds.
As you look up the blue-grey Hoh river, you can see Mount Olympus in the background. You'd just better hope you don't see the Thunderbird.
Our next stop was the Hoh Rain forest, named after the Hoh Indian Tribe, next to the Hoh River, on the Upper Hoh Road. It's not the Hoh's fault that centuries later, a similarly pronounced word would become a derogatory term. I apologize for making a Hoh joke the 10th time we crossed the Hoh River.
The rain forest is a wonderful place to visit. Leaving the visitors center, a sign 12 feet off the ground has a line on it, showing the annual rainfall the forest receives. It was a bright sunny day when I was there, though.
We walked the Hall of Mosses trail, a mile loop that takes you through the rain forest. Maple, hemlock, spruce, cedar and cottonwood make up the forest, some as tall as 300 feet and 20 feet in circumference.
The Hoh River, like many glacial rivers, is an opaque grey-blue, due to the "glacial flour", formed from the grinding of rock beneath the weight of the ice.
Olympic National Park, Hoh Rain Forest
Back to Top
We spent the night at the Kalaloch Lodge, on a bluff above Kalaloch Creek just behind the beach. It afforded wonderful views of both the sunset, and the subsequent sunrise, where otters played in the tidal pools while the sunrise painted the clouds a beautiful red against the blue sky.
It wasn't long before I left for this trip, that I found out about the Cascadia fault. I'm sure you remember the Indonesian Christmas Tsunami of 2004. After that quake and tsunami, scientists started looking for similar fault lines througout the world.
One of them, is the Cascadia Fault. It lies about 100 miles off the West coast, from Northern California to Vancouver, British Columbia, a distance of 700 miles. It is every bit as large and potentially deadly as the Indian Ocean fault that caused the Indonesian Tsunami. Scientists believe it lets go about every 300 to 900 years, with the last major event occuring on January 26, 1700. They estimate it let go with about a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.
If you look at the header picture of me on my home page (not the one with the burros, the other header picture), that's me, looking out over the Pacific at Kaloloch beach, wondering what a wave several dozen feet high coming at me would be like.
Okay, so the chance of it happening when I was there is about the same chance as Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens or the super-volcano in Yellowstone erupting while I was at those places. It didn't stop me from looking at a topographic map and finding a safe route out. :-)
Interestingly, the Hoh's Thunderbird and Whale legend may have been one of these Cascadia Tsunami events. Oral histories have a way of turning catastrophic events into legends of gods and their interactions.
If you don't believe me, look it up. The facts are undeniable.
Olympic National Park, Kalaloch Beach
Back to Top
End 2006 Pacific Northwest Vacation Part 1
Go to previous part | Go to next part