The drive across from Boise, Idaho to Washington was really scenic. The country side reminded me of the area around the Wurrumbungles, NSW. The whole west coast is experiencing a dry spell and it looks it with brown grass and tinder dry forest. I drove into the mountains west of Bend, Oregon and stayed the night in a rest area in Oakridge. Next day was a big drive through varied types of forest and National Park to the Columbia Gorge. On the way was spectacular volcanic mountains that form part of the Cascade Mountain range. It was raining slightly but I was told by locals that the rain was a good thing - this in a part of the North America which has the highest suicide rate in the country mainly put down to the inclement weather. Last time I came through here they had late falls of snow with a low cloud base so I didn't get to see much and a lot of the roads were closed. I was determined to see Mount Hood so parked in the car park at the Timberline Resort reading a book hoping the clouds would clear up.
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| Mt Hood from the south |
2 hours later the clouds parted so I could see the summit. I was above the cloud layer so the view was quite good of the surrounds but not good enough to take pictures.
After this I drove to the town of Hood River on the Columbia Gorge doing the usual stupid deer dodge. They are more suicidal than kangaroos and at least as stupid. This place is awesome
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| Colombia River and Gorge |
The weather was great with only small clouds in a blue sky
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| Mt Hood from Hood River town |
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| Mt Adams |
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| Mount St Helens |
I was surprised that the forest around Mt St Helens had not recovered as much as what I thought it would. I don't think the trees here handle fire and complete devastation as well as Eucalypts - it has been 34 years and there are still a lot of bare areas. This was a great day driving through forest with excellent weather. I ended up at Mt Rainier although the peak was covered with cloud. I waited on the south side called Paradise Valley for the cloud to clear but it didn't and only gave quick views of the summit.
That's fine because the next day was cloudless. I stayed in a Rest Area on the South west side of the park. It was fenced in with barbed wire topped cyclone fencing and I imagine this was to keep the bears out. I did not want to get mauled on the last night in the car so felt safer here than in the National Park camp grounds
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| Sunrise, Mt Rainier |
The drive up to the north side of Mt Rainier was spectacular. I was a little pissed at paying the park fee the day before when a lot of the south side roads were closed and the pit toilets absolutely reeked but this made up for it. The road ends at a place called Sunrise and it is truly awesome
I drove back out through Chinook pass then wasted about an hour and a half trying to get through a national forest to make a short cut. It looked good on the map! The road was one of those that steadily gets worse and worse going from a nice 2 lane tar surface and ending up in a rutted 4wd path at the top of a pass and a fireplace over looking the valley. I am sure I could have got through in the Defender to the next valley and National Forest but didn't want to risk any scratches or damage on the Jeep. At least it was scenic... After retreating back down the valley the GPS kept telling me to back track back past Mt Rainier to Seattle but I hate that and so went north East to meet up with the I90 which enters Seattle through the Snoqualmie pass which is enormous and worth the drive. This part of Washington now looks like Nevada - last time whilst not "Lush" it was at least green and semi arable.
That pretty much ended up driving the car inter city for me.
