Hiking

Olympic National Park

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Even though the Hoh Rain Forest is on the far side of the park from Seattle, it’s popular in July, so I watched an otter playing in the water for half an hour while waiting my turn to drive through the gate to look for parking. (A parking map at the gate would save everyone time). The Hall of Mosses Trail above is easily hiked from the visitor center, and it’s impressive and definitely worth the trip. Several of the trees appear to be 1000 years old, and the streams are clear from spring water, where I saw tiny salmon among the bright green watercress.

There are some signs that the increased heat from carbon pollution is damaging some of the mosses, and while the overall annual precipitation has remained the same, it’s more concentrated in heavy downpours and less in the misty fog-drip that these sensitive plants require. The glaciers are also disappearing rapidly and will disappear completely in a few decades or less, severely impacting all the downstream ecosystems. Still, it’s my favorite park for moss.

Of course, Olympic also has mountains, including Hurricane Ridge and Mount Olympus, which feeds the Hoh and Queets Rivers. There’s a Hot Springs resort at Sol Duc and boating at Lake Crescent. The Olympic Peninsula also has Native American Reservations which help manage the coastal wilderness, wildlife refuge and marine sanctuary. For me, their crown jewel is their large temperate rainforest, but the other areas are also stunning. Some artists are painting the glaciers before they melt, but wouldn’t it be better if we all did our part to reduce our carbon footprints?

Here are my visits to all parks in Washington.

Mount Rainier National Park

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Panorama Point above is about 1,500’ above the Paradise parking lot, halfway along the 5 mile ‘strenuous’ Skyline loop trail, just under halfway up the mountain. In July, there were waterfalls, snow on sections of the trail, wildflowers and marmots. Mts St Helens, Adams & Hood all visible in the distance. The northwest and southeast corners of the park both have old growth forests, along the Carbon River Rainforest—which is open for bicycling on the first few miles—and the Ohanapecosh River Grove of the Patriarchs Trails respectively. I understand why Muir extolled Rainier as the best of the volcanic peaks in this area.

“Of all the fire mountains which like beacons,
once blazed along the Pacific Coast,
Mount Rainier is the noblest.

John Muir

For me, it’s another return trip after several decades since my brother and sister and I took a hike and a photo up here somewhere. I was pleased to see the forest looking healthy, the clear streams near the top, the glacial gray rivers on the way down and the blue glacial lakes below, as I remember. Of course, when the rapidly receding glaciers disappear, the whole ecology will be severely disrupted. But for now, I’m happy to visit a place like this when the rest of the country is under a carbon fueled heat dome.

Here are my visits to all parks in Washington.

North Cascades National Park

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This photo looks down from the High Bridge at the end of the road 11 miles from Stehekin (rent an e-bike) on Lake Chelan. Here the bridge connects to the Pacific Crest Trail which cuts northeast across the southern wilderness on the last leg to Canada. The northern wilderness section of the multi-park complex is across the Skagit Wild & Scenic River and west of Ross Lake up to the Canadian border.

Both the north and south roadless wilderness areas have many high peaks with receding glaciers, so the hiking isn’t easy. And the wildlife includes black bears, cougars, gray wolves and grizzly bears. Careless campers closed one campsite by leaving food for bears to find, and another was closed due to grizzlies fighting over a nearby carcass. Being long of tooth and short of courage, I just hiked the short Agnes Gorge Trail on the edge of the wilderness to catch some more glimpses of rushing Stehekin River.

Wilderness, of course, has now ended. Now that our carbon pollution is changing the climate globally, there is nowhere on earth unaffected by humans. With that change comes responsibility. Since we no longer allow nature to keep itself in equilibrium, we must act to restore balance. We broke it, so now we own it. The park has increasingly fierce wildfires, which we exacerbated. So the extra damage is our fault, and we must fix it.

Here are my visits to all parks in Washington.

Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area

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The choice is either to start at the dam in Montana and go up the canyon by boat or to start in Wyoming and take in the views from the rim. It was a long way for me to dodge power boats without easy stopping points, and the water level is obviously artificial. So, I chose to admire the views from above, passing through the wild horse refuge area and finding Devils Canyon Overlook above. I didn’t see any horses, but a turkey vulture flew right by my head so close the loud whoosh and sudden breeze startled me. Maybe he was hoping I’d fall over the extremely steep edge.

The topography of the area is disconcerting, as you see mountains & high ground and assume the Bighorn River would run south, but for all the uplift, the river has just carved its way deeper through the partially flooded canyon. Far upriver further south, it does the same thing, but there it’s called Wind River and cuts through Wind River Canyon. Ultimately, the basins and lesser mountain ranges in Wyoming matter far less to the river direction than the Rocky Mountains, which on this side of the Continental Divide cause the rivers like the Shoshone and Bighorn to flow east and north, joining here before flowing into the Yellowstone River on its way to the Missouri River. In the photo above, that flow is from the upper right to lower left, below the large shadow on the cliff across the canyon. The stretch of water in the upper middle, below the fans is Devil’s Canyon, partly filled by the dam’s backwash and sometimes fed by Porcupine Creek. The foreboding names match the inhospitable scenery. This is a rough and remote area, but it’s also starkly beautiful and dramatic.

Here are my visits to all parks in Montana and Wyoming.

Grand Teton National Park

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Oxbow Bend (above) is popular at sunrise as wildlife gathers in the coils of the Snake River and the light hits the Teton Range high on the right. Owls, a bald eagle, beaver and bugling elk all appeared out of the mist. Elsewhere in the park, pelicans, geese, ducks, osprey and many different small birds, then foxes and a large herd of bison wandered into view. Black bears foraging for hawthorn berries forced a trail detour, but I only saw scat.

Pronghorn migrate from here in Wyoming as far as New Mexico, and the headwaters from the nearby Continental Divide eventually reach the Pacific. This is an important park, ecologically, more than just a great photo stop. Still, the many lakes provide lots of flat hikes with steep mountain backgrounds, and lots of mountain hikes with water vistas. Or you could take the Jenny Lake boat across for even more views. Kayaking is a hassle with the permit & inspection process, and the views are wonderful on scenic drives and trails. Jackson Hole is crowded and expensive now, so look elsewhere for a place to stay.

Here are my visits to all parks in Wyoming.

Arizona National Scenic Trail

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This forest service trail runs between the borders of Mexico and Utah. The southern Sky Islands section includes Coronado National Monument and Saguaro National Park near Tucson, and the terrain ranges from low desert to 10,000’ mountains. The next Sonoran Uplands section crosses seasonal desert rivers and passes by the Tonto National Monument (see photo). The Volcanic Field & Ponderosa Pine Plateau includes Walnut Canyon near Flagstaff. And the northern Plateaus & Canyons section crosses through the southern part of the new Grand Canyon National Monument and both south and north rims of the Grand Canyon before reaching Utah.

While I’ve visited the park units along the way, hiking long sections of the trail is too challenging for me, with risks from heat stroke to flash floods. But it would be an adventure! Driving to the parks along the trails is an easy way to see a few of the highlights, and I will be posting about several more trails this fall.

Here are my visits to all parks in Arizona.

Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve

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In the 1970s locals wanted to prevent a housing development in this historic area, one of the first settlements in Washington, still mostly unchanged from the 19th century. The result was our first ‘historical reserve’ where all landowners sold their development rights in perpetuity to the government (or a private natural conservancy). It makes for an interesting park, where the town is protected from development, but otherwise operates normally. There’s a good museum in Coupeville, and there are three state parks to visit, Fort Casey with a lighthouse, Fort Ebey with nature trails and a kayak launch, and Ebey’s Landing with a section of beach along the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Jacob Ebey’s blockhouse above is a good place to start a 4 mile hike along the bluffs returning on the beach. Jacob’s son Isaac settled here first, inviting his parents to join him from Independence Missouri, but Isaac was killed by natives in a reprisal for US attacks on native villages. Jacob’s home is open on weekends during the summer, and the staff will tell you the gory details if you ask. The bluffs are not for the feint of heart, but the views of the strait and the mountains are stupendous: Olympic, Rainier and Baker.

Here are my visits to all parks in Washington.

Lake Chelan National Recreation Area

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The Stehekin River in Washington state naturally formed a lake before emptying into the Columbia River, but a small dam was added to raise the water level. To get to the park, you have to take the 1.5 hour ferry ride from the resort town of Chelan (shuh-LAN, rhymes with man), which can be done as a day trip with layovers from 1.5 to 6 hours, or else you have to hike in on the Pacific Crest Trail or some other route, likely overnight through Grizzly territory. The ferry is the best way to get a look at the whole, long lake, including a large stretch of fire damage. I recommend bicycling, but the ferry company doesn’t allow bicycles on some boats, perhaps to aid their bicycle rental business at the arrival dock. Wenatchee Washington is a 45 minute drive south of Chelan, but its hotels are half the price.

Along with Lake Ross, this park is part of the North Cascades Complex, three distinct contiguous park units established simultaneously, so technically I visited all three by EV when I stopped at the main visitor center. The remote village of Stehekin is worth spending some time exploring, as they have a museum, a lodge with restaurant, a couple gift shops, a traditional apple orchard with free-pick-your-own in the fall, and an excellent bakery. Lodging, campgrounds and seats on the ferry do fill up, so reservations are wise. There are also very scenic hikes along the glacial river and above the glacial lake. Due to lack of easy access, the park has a relaxed old-timey feel to it, where folks wave as they pass on the road and people seem to slow down to enjoy themselves. But don’t miss your return ferry, which leaves promptly.

Here are my visits to all parks in Washington.

Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area

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A couleé is an old French Canadian word meaning a flow, such as a spring creek that carves out a gully. Roughly 15,000 years ago the giant glacial Missoula Lake melted, ice dams broke and the floods carved a giant gorge here. The Columbia River used to roll on through the grand couleé until the giant dam was built, providing power and irrigation to an extensive area. FDR approved the project, so the man made lake that stretches all the way back into Canada is named after him. The dam has a museum showing old propaganda films about how wonderful dams are. The 12 bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation couldn’t stop the dam, but now they own the lake and co-manage it with the park service. They also hold ceremonies to ask for the return of the salmon.

Fort Spokane—rhymes with ‘man’—has an old school built to force Native American children to be like white kids, and it still hosts Buffalo soldier descendant reunions. The fort is also part of the Nez Perce story, as Chief Joseph and refugees were forced to winter here, receiving some emergency supplies from a trading post named Fort Colville after the governor of the Hudson Bay Company, and some Nez Perce are still here. Many Chinese settled here when there were mining camps, but then they were excluded from immigrating by law, driven out of many northwest communities and massacred in at least a few cases.

There’s a scenic drive up the northeast coast of the lake, past farms, a ferry and a few boat launches. The town of Colville is mostly underwater now, but the mission remains on park grounds. I hiked a few miles looking for the remains of the original townsite of Kettle Falls that was moved to accommodate the lake. There was some fire damage and fireweed blooming, and there’s a large plywood operation nearby. I found the wetlands above between the park service campgrounds and a day use area. There were many geese around here, a few hikers, and I disturbed a large white-tail deer on the trail. It was hot in July, but cooler in Washington state than most of the country.

Here are my visits to all parks in Washington.

Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area

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The Big South Fork is a 76 mile tributary from the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee that joins the Cumberland River between Cumberland Falls and Lake Cumberland in Kentucky. The Falls are the second largest east of the Rockies and are the best place to see a moonbow on this side of the planet. Unfortunately, Kentucky has a littering problem, so Cumberland Falls State Park is also a place you will see trash in and along the river.

The Big South Fork looked better when I kayaked from Blue Heron to Yamacraw above (Sheltowee Trace Adventure Resort has a shuttle). Non-native insects killed many pine trees years ago, so the forest has more hardwoods now. Pollution upstream still degrades the water, but Appalachia is recovering from the damage done by coal mining. Blue Heron campground made a good base to charge my car and explore the old mine exhibit there, even though the tourist rail line to town is under repair.

The gorges and remote roads make it difficult to get around, so I recommend paddling if there’s enough water. I saw a young deer and a bald eagle on the river and enjoyed looking up at the cliffs. The hiking is excellent too, and my favorite was hiking under the huge rock shelter behind 113’ Yahoo Falls. There’s also a large natural bridge called Twin Arches. The area is thick with trees, which makes it difficult to see all the geological features of the gorges, but the lush dense foliage gives the river a primordial feel, especially since I saw not a single person while kayaking.

Here are my visits to all parks in Kentucky and Tennessee.