Fresh Snow Falling

My farewell to Bellingham came Tuesday in the form of an adventure through Whatcom Falls Park, culminating in this jump. Each visit to the park throughout my week and a half in town gave me the same feeling, "Spend more time here." The morning was foggy but dry, and the river meanders through the dense trees here hypnotically. With company, my option of wussing out was ruined.

In the park, a portion of Whatcom Falls visible under the bridge

In Seattle the next morning, I decided to take the long way to Portland through the Cascade Mountains. Exploring 15 miles down a gravel roads leading deeper into a valley allowed me to enjoy an entire campground to myself that night, where I departed from in the morning for intending to hike to a lake. It rained on me at first, then the rain turned to snow, and as I missed the turn off for the lake and walked another mile up the canyon, I found myself in the middle of a beautiful snow storm in this part of the state that's all but abandoned this time of year.

Today was an adventure on the road. With clear skies in Yakima, I chose to take the scenic route along Rainier and St. Helens. I thought the snow in the first pass I went through was bad, appropriately named White Pass. Then I got to the second pass along Mt. St. Helens. Deciding against taking the time to put on chains in the snow and all that, I followed the tire tracks of previous trucks and creeped to the top, at times my speedometer reaching 30 and 40 mph with my car barely crawling. But I made it, slowly up and slowly back down to the welcome sound of rain on the windshield and a road with lines I can see.

Some Pictures So Far

Glacier National Park in Montana. Atop one of the peaks we climbed that day. You can see in the background how jagged and compact the mountains are here, making it possible to summit multiple in a single day's route.

In Portland. I went to watch the Portland Timbers play their USL playoff match. The crowd was intense. Smoke bombs and chanting and standing for the full 90 minutes.

Out of Bend, OR, I drove up the Cascade Lakes Hwy into the Cascade Range. They had just gotten eight inches of snow the previous weekend, and I was granted to fresh powder on the mountain trails and very few people getting in the way of the scenery.

In Newport, OR., where I hit the Oregon Coast for the first time. I ate at the Rogue Brewery Public House and somehow joined in on a locals Bingo game that night, which consisted, among other things, of creating nicknames for each letter-number combo on the board, a lot of telling of both good and bad jokes, an impromptu hip hop performance, and rocking the Winnebago of a guy from North Carolina who bailed early.

A view of Crescent Beach, still on the Oregon Coast. I hiked out to the beach early in the morning and shared a driftwood campfire with a few people from Portland. You can see the smoke rising off the beach.