Our big Oregon Road Trip was almost halfway finished, and today it was time to head north into Washington and west toward the Pacific Coast, spending the night in a campground at White Pass.
After a day spent visiting Mount Hood and several waterfalls, we left Oregon behind, by crossing the Columbia River on the Sam Hill Memorial Bridge, on US 97. It was only a two lane bridge, but that was OK with us as there wasn’t very much traffic that day. The river valley is quite deep, so it wasn’t surprising that we were climbing higher immediately after the crossing. Up near the top was the “Stonehenge” Memorial which Vicki really wanted to visit after I refused to bother last time we came south through here. It turned out not to be as cool as it could have been, so I show no pictures here. I was right the first time. For once. But the views from up there were great. So Vicki was right, as well! Let’s be honest: Both of us love being right.
The first main road west across the state was Highway 12, which crossed the Pacific Crest at White Pass. Along the way we stopped at a roadside fruit stand and Vicki got a bunch of fresh ripe Washington Cherries, and that made up for the disappointment of Stonehenge. She was thrilled. Fresh fruit is always a blessing on a big road trip.
The drive took a lot longer than it looks like while reading this blog, but eventually we climbed high into the mountains and neared White Pass. We saw a roadside pullout that mentioned Clear Creek Falls, so of course we had to stop. Waterfalls have that effect on us. The afternoon sun was already getting low, so we didn’t get the best view of the falls (I would recommend morning hours) but there it was, Clear Creek, plunging down into a deep canyon. Very nice.
It was only a short drive from the falls to what we hoped would be our campsite for the night. This was the White Pass Campground on Leech Lake, which was situated directly on the pass. It turned out that there were plenty of camping spots open that night, so we found a good one by the lake. There were plenty of mosquitoes out for their evening stroll when we got there, but a bit of DEET solved that problem nicely. Vicki fired up the trusty camping stove while I got the sleeping area ready in the back of our “camperized” Rav4. Then I shut the back hatch and crawled inside to kill any errant bugs that made it inside. I got out our Kindles and soon we were eating dinner at a picnic table in the forest, just the way we like it.
We took a very short after-dinner constitutional and headed into the car. The bugs wouldn’t land on us, thanks to the DEET, but they still buzzed in our faces like mad. This got old after a while, and the car was our haven for the night.
We decided to wake up before dawn as we had yet another long day of driving ahead of us. We ate a quick meal before the mosquitoes could begin warming up, then packed up the car to leave.
But I couldn’t leave without taking a quick visit and hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, which crossed White Pass at the upper end of the campground. Yay! Another tiny piece of PCT successfully hiked. It felt good, even though I still had 1600+ miles left to go. Heh. Maybe someday.
It was nice to drive westbound in the morning, with the sun behind us and beautiful mountain scenery in front. Highway 12 was a good road through pine forests, complete with views of Mount Rainier to the north. We even stopped at a roadside parking area to learn about yet more volcanic action in the cascades, but this time it was the Washington Cascades. We liked it just the same.
As we neared civilization along Interstate 5, we checked our phones for a Love’s Truck Stop. There was one on our route, so we pulled in, gassed up the car, and stopped for an overdue shower. We had been smelling a bit ripe, but not anymore. Life was good again.
And that is the end of the Cascade Volcano section of our road trip. At least for now. We were really looking forward to our tour down the Oregon Coast. After that was finished, maybe we’d head inland for a few more volcanoes on the way home.
For a topographic map of the hike see my CalTopo Page
For LOTS more photos of the trek see my Flickr Page
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