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This is to those of you who have come manually to this site, wondering
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I don’t have any idea why this would happen … perhaps hackers from you
know where(!) … or Gremlins, I expect.
Sunday,
17th of June to Monday, 25th of June – To Seattle, WA,
and then the Forest Roads back to and through the Washington & Oregon
Cascades.
Two
days later I was off to Seattle to collect paintings from a gallery that had
shut down while I was away. He next nine
days I spent on the forest roads east and south of Mount Rainier National Park,
wending my way south through the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in the
triangle formed by Mount Rainier to the north, Mount St. Helens to the
southwest, and Mount Adams to the southeast, before crossing the Columbia River
back into Oregon at the Dalles, and then into the Mount Hood National Forest,
on reconnaissance for future campsites, and paintings. I found some great sites.
 |
Cluster
of butterflies at my first camp
on the way up to Government Meadows. |
The
first two nights were spent east of Mount Rainier, following the Greenwater
River up to, Government Meadows near the crest of the Washington Cascades; deep
valleys; steep road; snow patches still up there. After that I proceeded into Mount Rainier
National Park, stopping off at Silver Springs Camp Ground to fill my water
bottles, with Stevie Nicks, of MacWood Fleet, singing the song “Silver Springs”
in my mind ;) The Sunrise Visitors
Center was still closed, due to snow, but I only wanted to get some photo from
the White River Campground, and later at Silver Falls … I have been to Mount
Rainier before, in 2010, and on this trip really wanted to get onto the forest
roads.
 |
Mount
Rainier on the way back
down from Government Meadows. |
 |
| Skookum
Falls across the White River from State Hwy 410. |
 |
| Silver
Springs. |
 |
Mount
Rainier from near
the White River Campground. |
 |
| Tipsoo
Lakes in the Snow … this is on June 19th! |
 |
| Bunchberries
in the Forest. |
 |
| Silver
Falls, Mount Rainier National Park. |
 |
| The
glacial waters of Silver Falls. |
 |
| Unknown
waterfall, on State Hwy 123, going south from Silver Falls. |
That
night I camped well south of the National Park, and deep into the
aforementioned triangle, with a view of Mount Adams, not far from Chambers Lake
… oh, and with a few mosquitoes as well.
It is wild country up there, and the snows were still halfway across
some of those forest roads, but none were blocked. Takhlakh Lake (to be pronounced “Toc Loc”),
was my favorite of the lakes I visited, because of the view of Mount Adams
reflecting in its waters. I also dropped
in on Twin Falls, which I had visited back in early June 2011, this time
approaching from the north, the direction I tried to go from Twin Falls, but
was stopped by snow back then; now it was two weeks later in the season, and
the snows were sufficiently reduced to allow travel on most if not all the
forest roads. This is wild country worth
exploring a little further, maybe later in the year.
 |
Evening
on Mount Adams,
from my camp near Chambers Lake, … |
 |
| … and
in the light of morning. |
 |
| Mount
Adams from Takhlakh Lake. |
 |
| Morning
mist at my camp near Council Lake. |
 |
| Mist
settling on the Strawberries. |
 |
| Twin
Falls, flowing into the Lewis River. |
Once
I crossed the Columbia River and back in Oregon, it was late in the day, as I
climbed southwest out of Hood River, heading for Lost Lake, where I had not
been since, probably, 2006. I wanted to
get a few more photographs of the view of Mount Hood from there, to augment
those from twelve years ago.
Inadvertently I found a great campsite, a few miles from Lost Lake,
tucked in a small space in the forest, with a stream running through it. For several years I have had a gravity system
for water filtering that I had not used before, and so used it here for the
first time. All last year in the
Southwestern Deserts I had been afraid of clogging up the filter pores with all
that silt in those waters. Here in the
Cascades, I had a perfect water source.
I now have discovered a Millbank Bag that I received from England, which
is used to filter out all the mud, silt, and detritus, from an “iffy” water
source, and once the water has gone through that it can be finally filtered
through the “gravity” system, to keep out all the microbial nasties. So … if I ever get down to the Southwest
again, I am prepared to filter water to my heart’s content, by first using the
Millbank Bag, developed for the British Army; of course up here in the Pacific Northwest, the Millbank
Bag can be used when the river is full of glacial flour, as many are, coming
off many of the high Cascade Volcanoes.
 |
| Mount
Hood from Lost Lake. |
 |
| Rhododendron
blossoms. |
 |
| Stunning
blue blossoms. |
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| Bear
Grass. |
 |
Bear
Grass, looking off towards
the Lolo Pass, west of Mount Hood
(not the Lolo Pass
in Idaho). |
 |
| The
creek at my campsite not far from Lost Lake. |
 |
| Mount
Hood. |
 |
Mount
Hood from Trillium Lake …
I chose a moment when the floaters had largely dispersed
for lunch.
Lost Lake is the other side
of Mount Hood. |
My
last campsite was south of Timothy Lake, south of Mount Hood, with another
creek running by. I had stopped at
Trillium Lake, which was a zoo, because it was a Sunday, and hot, and close
enough to Portland that it’s an easy day trip up there … flotation devices were
thick enough on the lake, that I might have been able to stroll across the
lake, dry-shod, had I so desired. I
declined the opportunity. Timothy Lake
was a little better … it’s bigger, farther from Portland, and has four or five
campgrounds, all full, to absorb the numbers.
Just two miles south of that lake, I had peace and quiet. The next day I found my way down to the
Clackamas River Road and followed the river down through Estacada, skirted the
south side of Portland, and so back to the McMinnville area.
 |
| Last
camp in the Cascades, south of Timothy Lake. |
 |
| On
the Clackamas River, going down to Estacada. |
The
next few weeks I spent catching up on things at my home base, getting work
framed for galleries, posting my blog, etc., before I headed down to the south
Oregon Coast and the annual Maritime Show at the Coos Museum of Art in
mid-July, where I still am for the next few days. It’s downright cold here, in the sixties and
with a vicious north wind, but to me that is far preferable to the hundred
degree weather, back in the Willamette Valley.
It's
been a great year in search of, and finding … “Wonder” … and yet there is more “Wonder” … out there.
