Crater Lake National Park

Day 38 Oregon

We decided instead of take two days getting to Crater Lake National Park, we would do it in one long drive. According to the GPS the drive was supposed to take us 10 hours, crossing over 500 miles. As it turns out due to the parks campgrounds being full, and a poorly constructed road system in the park we drove for just under 12 hours. Finally stopping to camp about 20 miles outside the park. Bummer.

Day 39

Not letting yesterday's long drive upset us, we decided on a casual day with a few small hikes, and perhaps some swimming in Crater Lake. Crater Lake is just as it sounds, a massive crater six miles across, and filled with water. It is the deepest lake in North America, and also one of the clearest lakes in the world, with visibility down to 400ft, though the lake itself is 2000ft at it's deepest point. The crater itself was formed when the mountain that used to stand in its place erupted. Consequently the eruption took place right around the time of Noah's flood. Hmm interesting. A smaller second eruption constructed a small island jutting 800ft out from the lake.
Due to the steep slick sides of the crater, there is only one trail down to access the lake. 1.1 miles down with 700ft of elevation loss to a boat dock where they do tours. Of course the tours are $40 a ticket. Needless to say, we passed on the tour. We did hike down the trail, and were greeted by the bluest, clearest water we had ever seen. Of course we promptly found the tallest cliff we could find along the water, and jumped! Over and over, until the ranger got fussy and yelled at us. Not that there were any signs saying no jumping. Oh well, we got some good 30ft jumps in.
After hiking back up we headed back over to the campground inside the park, with hopes of getting a campsite. Strangely Crater Lakes campgrounds are not run by the National Park service, instead by a private excursion company called Exterra. They would not allow any registration until close to 1:00pm, throwing a wrench into our afternoon activities. We did end up with a campsite, and decided to have some lunch to celebrate before heading back out to do some hiking.
After a delicious pizza lunch we hopped over to the trailhead for Mount Scott, the highest peak in the park. The view from the top was supposed to be spectacular. The hike was relatively easy, 1700ft of elevation gain in a 2.5 mile hike up a series of switchbacks. Upon arriving at the summit, we found the lookout station locked, which didn't stop us from climbing up onto the deck to get a look around. The views did not disappoint, we could see all the way to Mount Shasta to the south, and a perfect view of the lake to the north. Definitely a worthwhile hike.

MILEAGE:

Driving-

This trip: 551
Total: 5511

Walking-

This trip: 7
Total:206 (Woot 200 miles!)

Cordelain, kordalane, Coeur D'Alane

This is the segment of the trip that has delayed the blog, and will only be a brief bullet point coverage of what we did, as it was a vacation from our vacation, and not very outdoorsy. A big thank you to Ian, Kelly, Rodney, and Jacob for letting us use their living room as a campsite.

Day 34 Idaho

5 hr drive
Chilled
Crickets

Day 35

Floated
Bog crawled

Day 36

Worked out Krocs
Lunch with Jenny
Jumped
Captain America


Day 37

Slept
Ate
Toured Gazzer Ranch
Slept

MILEAGE:

Driving-

This trip: 325
Total: 4950

Walking-

This trip: 0
Total:199

Mount Rainier National Park

Day 32

We said our goodbyes to our briefest of the national parks, The North Cascades, hopped in the car and made a B-line for the great city of Seattle. Seattle is by far one of my favorite cities, the ocean, great food, nice folk, and it's extremely easy to navigate.
The drive down was uneventful, though full of anticipation. Our first stop had to be the REI headquarter store. We used to visit the store when we were kids living in Tacoma Washington, and going back was like going to Disneyland after a long absence. This store is nothing less than incredible. Hiking trails to test boots, a mountain bike test track, a river to test canoes and kayaks, the tallest freestanding climbing structure in the world, and even a rain room to test jackets. I would highly recommend visiting REI whenever in Seattle.
Itching to get to Mount Rainier National Park, we had a quick lunch at a former burger place, who's catch phrase is "Where six pieces of bacon is normal", and got back on the road.
We finished the short two hour drive to Mount Rainier, which has the most snow in the world right now, and just looks like a big white dome rising from the valley floor. Upon arrival we were greeted by the same type of campground as the North Cascades, lush undergrowth, tall trees, and logs covered in moss. Beautiful. We set up camp and took what time we had left in the afternoon to drive up to the visitors center and see what sort of hike we could do the next day. The ranger tried to talk us out of it, but we settled on the ambitious glacial hike to the Muir base camp just two miles from the rainier summit.
Our campsite was perfect for parkour due to the fallen trees, and well placed picnic tables. So I spent the next two hours leaping, climbing and hanging around camp, I was able to perfect my kong, and made some major advancement with my dash. If your not sure what I'm talking about, that's what YouTube is for.

Day 33

We woke early enough to get a good start on the mountain, figuring we could follow one of the guided expeditions up the mountain. The staging area for the climb was located in the parking lot of the visitors center, due to the heavy snow covering the mountain. We arrived promptly at 9:30am and psyched ourselves up for the 4.5 mile, 4700ft elevation gain hike. The first two miles would have been a paved path had the winter not been so harsh, instead we trudged through the snow. It was a good hike, we reached the Muir ice field within an hour and half, passing several hikers, and skiers along the way. Crossing the ice field was a slow grueling climb, partially because we had to be cautious of the steep ice, mostly due to the 2700ft in 2.5 miles. Almost rivaling that of Grigornio mountain in Southern California.
We reached the base camp, just a stones throw from the summit, yet so far. As the climb to the summit crosses dangerous crevasses and crumbling rock jutting from the glaciers. While at the base camp we had the opportunity to watch a group of Air Force survival instructors practicing self arrests and crevasse rescues for their push to the summit tomorrow. Our view from the semi-summit of the Rainier volcano we could see mount Hood, Adams and st. Helens. All giant volcanos. Despite the view the cold wind was cutting to the bone, so we started our swift decent.
The Muir ice field is so steep and wide that instead of trying to walk back down most people opt to slide. At the steepest points we would have a seat in one of the groove slides cut into the face of the glacier from peoples butts. Some of these slides extended as far as 1/4 of a mile and allowed speeds around 25 mph. Of course we got soaked doing this, but what a blast! In the areas not steep enough for slides we would half jog, half slide our feet quickly down the hill. The hike that took us 4 hours up, only took us 1.5 hours to get back down. Another feather in the cap.
We didn't find out until a few days after Rainier, but a good friend of our family climbed the same trail the very next day, he probably slid the same chutes we did.

MILEAGE:

Driving-

This trip: 213
Total: 4625

Walking-

This trip: 10
Total:199

Blog delay

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let y'all know that I'm not shirking the blog, I've just been without strong enough service to post. The images are large, and it's very difficult to post even with full 3G service. I'll continue to try to get the past week and a half posted, until then, here is a picture of bearshark.

North Cascade National Park

Day 31 Washington

10:00am

Not only did I get to sleep in a real bed, but it came standard with an ample dose of sleeping in, brought to you by the Canadian noon check out time.
We left the hotel refreshed, and energetic to get out of the city. Five days in Canada is just the right amount. Despite our enthusiasm to leave the country, we did not anticipate the near two hours it would take to cross the border. And with British Columbia being an "idle free zone" we had to keep turning the car on and off then on again. Two Hours of this will wear on you. When our turn finally came around it was a quick round of questioning, some photographs of the car via the elaborate camera system installed, and we were back in the US.
What a relief, the past few days got us comfortable with converting kilometers, currency and liters. Now back in the US our brains can slip back into a numb to numbers level of awareness. It felt good.

3:00pm

The North Cascades National Park is nestled up against the Canadian border, similar to Glacier National Park. Cascades even holds the honest number of glaciers in the US, just over 300. Unfortunately the Cascades are more of a backpackers paradise with only a couple of day hikes. Our arriving in the late afternoon eliminated most of our hiking opportunities, leaving us with small overlooks and short walks. Because of this, we decided to only stay one night in the Cascades and use our time to explore Mount Rainier National Park.
The campground was perfect! Everything I love about a forest in one place. A swift river, no Mosquitos, hundred foot trees, giant logs covered in moss, lush undergrowth and ferns. If you have ever been to or heard of Washington state, you probably know that a sunny day is about as rare as a rainy day in Palm Springs. Today overflowed with sunshine and the temperature was perfect, right around 75°. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful day, the remainder of we spent sitting in the shade reading, and climbing about on the logs crisscrossing the river, it was perfect.


MILEAGE:

Driving-

This trip: 133
Total: 4412

Walking-

This trip: 0
Total:189

Pictures from Vancouver

First off, sorry about the recent lack of blog, we went on a brief vacation from our vacation. Here are some of the photos taken in Vancouver.

Vancouver British Columbia

Day 30 British Columbia

Today is our longest straight drive. And south, the sun will actually go down before midnight. We should be in the car for about 10 hours until we reach the city of Vancouver. Where we get to stay in a nice Hilton. We also discovered we will be in Vancouver on the busiest weekend of the year, BC day weekend. I'm not sure what BC day celebrates, but it's a big deal.

5:30am

We packed up camp by six am and were on the road by seven, surprisingly the GPS says we will arrive at 3:00pm. With the time change that drops our drive time to nine hours. Not so bad.
Close to noon we decided to stop for lunch at Tim Hortons, apparently the restaurant is "very" Canadian. As it turns out it is primarily a doughnut shop, that also serves soup and sandwiches. They are also the first place we have encountered that does not accept Visa. Fortunately they do accept American currency, making a small profit off of the exchange. Oh well, it's the cost of a Canadian sandwich.

3:00 pm

The GPS was dead on, we arrived at the hotel in high spirits, checked in and headed up to our room, which was located on the 11th floor and required a keycard to make the elevator run. Pretty cool. Getting to the room we were greeted by the sight on one king size bed. Looks like one of us is sleeping on a roll out bed tonight. And it's been thirty days since my last bed , so I took it upon myself to claim the bed.
We didn't let the bed thing dampen our spirits in the least, not only was the hotel outfitted with a giant Korean mall attached to the lobby, but they had free Wi-Fi! Finally I could pull the trigger on the backed up blogs since Glacier National Park, sift through my 75 emails and log into my bank account. As it turns out Canada has their international transaction fee set as a percentage. Interesting.

6:00pm

Deciding there was just to much going on in the city to hang around at the hotel, we had a vodka tonic, and started walking towards the SkyTrain station. Vancouver has a public transportation system similar to the New York subway system. Interestingly the SkyTrain is above ground and elevated like a monorail in our section of town, but ends up beneath the downtown area. With a little help from some ladies on the train we figured out which stop to exit that would yield us the best access to goings on in the city.
Our first order of business was food, walking down the busy downtown street we just grabbed the closest restaurant, which turned out to be prohibition era speakeasy themed. Complete with flapper girls. We ordered a pitcher of beer, some potato skins, our entrees and relaxed a bit. It wasn't long before I overheard some conversation that piqued my interest behind me. Social as I am I turned to meet these folks. They ended up being a local Vancouver based band that had recently returned from a tour on the southern states. Playing from Texas up so sacramento. They are a heavy metal group called Titans Eve, although they didn't strike me as the heavy metal sort, I'll have to YouTube some of their music.

9:00pm

We continued walking in the direction of the harbor, as supposedly there is a large firework show closer to ten. Finding our way was easy, just follow the people. The thousands of people. As we walked we quickly realized that the big event of the day was the gay pride parade that must have taken place earlier in the day. People still in costume and the like. We paid them no mind, and made our way down to the harbor. The difference with Canadians and Americans. In America people would be stacked on top of each other filling in every available gap, trying to get a good seat for the fireworks. Here people are courteous of personal space. Fortunately we aren't Canadian, and quickly found a spot right in the front.
The fireworks were as expected, big, bright, and full of audience participation. Perhaps living so close to Disneyland I've become Jaded to fireworks. Don't get me wrong they were great, I even saw a few that were new to me. Watching the police boats herding kayaks that kept creeping into the evacuation route was almost more entertaining.
As soon as the show was over we started the adventure that was returning to the hotel. Our first goal was to get to a side street to avoid the crowds, that was no small task in itself. Once safely away from the crowds we picked our way through residential streets towards the SkyTrain. Had we not still been slightly abuzz from the beer, we may have found our train with ease. That was not the case. The trip that only took us thirty minutes to the harbor, lasted over an hour getting back. We wound our way through alleys, in circles, down into totally different, and wrong train stations and finally to the train back to the Hilton in Metrotown. The train was packed. Crowded with all manner of folk. At one stop an angry young guy with a mohawk and bloody hands came cursing into our car, he was exactly what you would expect to see on a subway.

1:00am

We made it! A real bed at last. The embrace of the cool sheets was ten fold better after this long day, and night of adventure. Sleep came quickly.

MILEAGE:

Driving-

This trip: 506
Total: 4279

Walking-

This trip: 6
Total:189