Sunday, July 17, 2011
Northwest trip, day 12
Dateline Maupin, OR (OK, it's a bit late - couldn't get on last night): This was Mt Rainier day - that's said rain-i-er, as we never did see the mountain due to rain & fog. So, no fancy pictures of a shining mountain, but lots of pictures of lesser mountains wreathed in clouds, plus some where we're looking down on the clouds. Yes, it was cold.
We left early and headed up a canyon toward the mountain, lots of switchbacks and very rugged terrain. Our first stop was the Sunrise visitor center - which wasn't open yet, and all the trails were deep in snow. So, we went on down to the rain forest visitor center, where we had a "small world" moment - a CMSU grad saw Bill's Ag Dept jacket, turns out he lives in Vancouver and was Dr. Emerson's disciple in Geology. Next we headed for Paradise - another snow covered visitor center, packed with people in ski garb. They had 900" there this year, that's 75 feet!
Left there and headed back toward Yakima, stopping for lunch and at a fruit stand for a pound of fresh-picked cherries which Sandra immediately scarfed down. Thwn it was down US-97 to the Columbia River and The Dalles, thence on to Maupin, a rafting resort town on the Des Chutes River. Stayed at a small but clean River Run motel, and had a great pizza - actually we could have shared one personal pizza (guess what we're having for supper Sunday).
Miles to be posted later,
Sunday is Crater Lake and on to Klamath Falls.
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