Month: July 2017

19-22 Jun:  Just south of Portland, we visited friends and former Mainers Dan & Linda.  Linda worked alongside Amy way back when Amy and I first met in 1976.  Dan has taken up watercolor painting in retirement, and we were very impressed with his mastery of composition and technique.  They showed us around the beautiful rose garden in Portland (“the Rose City”) in full bloom, then took us to a gourmet ice cream shop downtown.

While in the area we hiked Mt. Tom Dick and Harry (great view of Mt. Hood) and biked a section of the pleasant Banks-Vernonia rail trail.  As we headed north on our way to Washington, we drove over a high ridge with a good view of Mt. Saint Helens.  Active logging in this area has produced some large clearcuts that are covered with wildflowers as the vegetation begins to re-establish itself.

23 Jun – 2 Jul:  The cornerstone for planning this year’s trip was a week-long cruise with friends Gordon & Catherine in their 34-foot sailboat Gypsy Soul.  They moved from southeastern Washington to Sequim on the Olympic peninsula seven years ago.  Gordon and Paul were grad students together in Maine in the early 1970s.  Catherine, an accomplished and creative quilter, explained the details and symbolism of the quilt “Boys in the Boat” on display in Sequim’s museum (she made the largest and most detailed panel of the group-effort quilt).  We highly recommend reading the book by the same name telling the inspiring story of gold medal Olympian and Sequim resident Joe Rantz.  While Catherine was working on her design for the quilt, she met with Joe’s daughter Judy.

Catherine couldn’t go on the cruise due to schedule conflicts, so we went with Gordon (Amy filled in admirably as ship’s cook).  We cruised across the Juan de Fuca Strait and stayed two nights each in Roche Harbor on San Juan Island, Echo Bay on Sucia Island, Reid Harbor on Stuart Island, and Friday Harbor on San Juan Island before returning to Sequim.  Winds were too light to sail effectively much of the time, so mostly we motored, sometimes with a sail raised for additional speed, but sunny days and pleasant temperatures were with us the whole time.  We explored the town amenities at Roche Harbor and Friday Harbor, including visits to the historical sites of English Camp and American Camp (San Juan Island National Historical Park).  Those were military garrisons during the “Pig War,” when San Juan Island was jointly occupied during 1859-1872 by both English and Americans during the border dispute.  Tensions escalated when an American farmer shot an English pig.  The dispute was eventually arbitrated and resolved with the help of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm I.

On Sucia Island and Stuart Island, there are some residents but no significant towns.  We took advantage of the very pleasant hiking trails on both islands (Sucia is a state park and there is also a small state park on Stuart).  On our hike out to the Turn Point lighthouse on Stuart, we passed two “treasure chests” containing locally designed t-shirts, etc., on sale by the honor system with mail-in payment.  Amy bought a t-shirt as a souvenir of our time in the San Juans.  The snow-covered volcano of Mt. Baker was a prominent landmark visible from several places during our cruise.  We didn’t sight any whales or orcas, but we did see several seals and one harbor porpoise.

4 July:  Gordon gave us a tip for a hike with great views from a lesser known trail in Olympic National Park to avoid the heavy holiday crowds.  The trailhead for the Deer Park trail is beyond the crowded Hurricane Ridge visitor center at the end of the lightly used Obstruction Point gravel road.  We only met a dozen hikers on our hike, which went along a ridge above treeline, with gentle grades and extensive views the whole way.  There were about six or seven snowfields to cross in the early going, but beyond that the trail was completely snow free.  Prominent to the south was Mt. Olympus, the highest mountain in the park, still covered with snow.  We hiked a little beyond a trail junction to where the trail curved around a high point along the ridge for a distant view of Mt. Baker.  There were several kinds of wildflowers in bloom.  Marmots are commonly seen along this trail, but maybe most of them were hibernating, because we only saw one, which was standing still on the edge of a patch of snow beside the trail.

5-7 July:  After buying a new spare tire for the car to replace a flat we got on Obstruction Point road, we left the Olympic peninsula and headed to the North Cascades, where we would spend the next couple of days hiking on national park, national forest, and state park trails.  The Thunder Knob trail (North Cascades National Park) was a pleasant hike up to a ridgetop view of Diablo Lake and surrounding snow-covered mountain peaks.  The Sauk Mountain trail (Baker/Snoqualmie National Forest) started up near treeline in wildflower-studded meadows and the view from the summit was very rewarding for a fairly easy hike.  We had done this hike about seven years ago on a cloudy day without any distant views, so the hike was well worth repeating.  Short interpretive trails in Rasar State Park (where we were camped) and nearby Rockport State Park were very attractive in addition to being informative, winding through old growth forests and beside the Skagit River.

8-10 July:  We had already become familiar with western red cedars from hiking in the San Juan islands and Washington’s North Cascades (as well as from reading Boys in the Boat), but once we got into southern British Columbia, it felt like we had entered the heartland of this stately species.  Our campsite in Golden Ears Provincial Park was in a handsome forest of cedars about a foot to a foot and a half in diameter—tall and straight, without much undergrowth in their dense shade.  Scattered among these trees, however, were stumps six to eight feet or more in diameter, bearing witness to how truly magnificent the original old growth forest must have been before the arrival of Canadian lumberjacks.

We spent about half a day in the Museum of Anthropology, on the campus of the University of British Columbia.  Though the museum covers a variety of cultures, it focuses primarily on the native people of the Northwest Coast (Washington, British Columbia, and southern Alaska).  Northwest coast natives included many different tribes and languages.  These people are probably best known for their totem poles, carved from large western red cedar trees.  Totem poles were developed into a distinctive art form, with colorful and stylized symbols of various animals, both real and legendary.  Equally impressive were their baskets, woven in intricate geometric patterns using materials from a wide variety of reeds, roots, bark, and wood.  Some were so tightly woven that they were used to hold water, so they had no need to develop pottery.  Abundant food resources from both forest and sea in this region made possible a sedentary life without the need for agriculture, enabling the development of such highly refined arts.

At our niece Kathy’s wedding, we had met her husband Bahrad’s parents, Shahob and Giti.  They had invited us to visit them if our travels ever took us to Vancouver, so this year we took them up on their offer and spent a delightful evening with them in their North Vancouver home.  Originally from pre-revolutionary Iran, they lived in Michigan and then several years in Saskatchewan before moving to B.C.  They treated us to a scrumptious home-cooked Persian style dinner and the evening gave us a nice chance to get to know them better.

The next day we explored a couple of short hiking trails near our campground in Golden Ears PP.  Walking in the quiet western red cedar forest, with waterfall, mountain, and lake views, was a pleasant change from commuting into Vancouver’s hectic city traffic.  On the Lower Falls trail we met a couple originally from Columbia, now settled in B.C., who invited us to their campsite after hiking.  We spent a couple of enjoyable hours with them and their friends, originally from India, while sharing Columbian coffee, Indian tea, and Persian cookies (a gift from Giti the night before), discussing all sorts of topics from our varied perspectives.

11-12 July:  For our bike ride in British Columbia, we chose the Myra Canyon section of the Kettle Valley Railway trail.  As we drove toward our camping destination at Bear Creek Provincial Park, we traveled through thick haze from scores of active wildfires in interior B.C. (between the Cascades and the Rockies).  Signs warned of highway closures to our north.  There were campfire bans and some towns were even under a ban to sell or refill propane canisters to campers.  From our campsite on the shore of Lake Okanagan, we could barely see across to the other side.  Fortunately, the air cleared considerably overnight for our ride the next day.

The Kettle Valley Railway was constructed during 1910-1916 to transport silver, copper, and agricultural products to the coast.  The railway declined in the 1960s and the rails were removed in the 1970s.  In the early 1990s, through the efforts of the Myra Canyon Trestle Restoration Society, the route was turned into a popular rail trail for bikers, hikers, and equestrians.  The section through steep-sided Myra Canyon includes 18 trestles, two tunnels, and breathtaking scenery.  In 2003, just a few months after this section was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada, a large wildfire devastated the forest and destroyed 14 of the 18 trestles.  Thanks to national and provincial funding, this popular trail was completely restored under the direction of the founding volunteer organization, the MCTRS.  Trailside signs explain many interesting historical structures and natural history features along the route.  We felt that our 22 km (round trip) ride through the canyon was perhaps the most dramatic section of rail trail that we have biked on yet.

13-15 July:  From southern B.C., we dipped south into eastern Washington to visit Amy’s sister Barb and her husband Dan in Chewelah and Amy’s brother Bill and his wife Deb in Spokane.  When we visited Barb and Dan two years ago, they were living in central Nevada, but now they have retired and moved back to Chewelah, where they had lived for several years while their daughters were growing up.  We went into town to have ice cream for lunch at Chataqua, the local fair.  There we met up with Susan, who was introduced to us by our mutual friend Kathy on a cross-country ski outing last winter back in N.H.  When Susan said she lives in Washington, we discovered that she lives only a few miles from Amy’s sister.  Susan was able to arrange a resupply trip home during her long distance hike on the Pacific Northwest Trail to coincide with our visit with Barb and Dan.

The next day Dan and Bill joined us for a bike ride along the Spokane River on the Centennial Trail, a paved pedestrian and bike path.  The part of the trail that we biked on winds through areas of grassland and scattered pine trees along the river, with one section along residential streets and then a dedicated bike lane as we got closer to downtown Spokane.  Afterward we spent time visiting with Bill and Deb before returning to Chewelah.

16 July:  Heading east, we passed through the Idaho panhandle into Montana at Lookout Pass.  This was one of the original ski areas in the U.S. (rope tow installed in 1936 and officially opened in 1938) and is one of three ski areas in the country where skiers can ski in two states.  There we picked up some information on a bike trail that we’d like to explore on a future trip (the Hiawatha).  Today, however, we pushed on to a rendezvous with “Old Fogey” friends Rob and Judith, who had traveled from Maine in their camper to meet us at Seeley Lake in Lolo National Forest to begin three weeks of camping, hiking, and biking together in the Rockies of Montana, Alberta, and B.C.

17 July:  We biked along the Clark Fork River in Missoula on the Kim Williams Nature Trail and the Milwaukee Road rail trail.  These trails, partly on gravel and partly on asphalt, gave us a pleasant way to pass the time while our car was being checked out because some dashboard warning lights had come on the day before (no problems were found, though).

18 July:  We relocated to Great Falls, where we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  This little museum, run by the U.S. Forest Service, has excellent exhibits and videos that easily captured our attention for a couple of hours.  The Great Falls of the Missouri River were about at the midpoint of the the Corps of Discovery’s westward journey and proved to be a much more formidable obstacle than Lewis and Clark had anticipated.  The boats and supplies had to be portaged around this series of five major waterfalls, which took over two weeks rather than the expected one day.

19 July:  Before leaving Great Falls, we visited the C.M. Russell Museum.  Charlie Russell (1864-1926) was one of America’s most celebrated western painters and sculptors.  He had firsthand experience working as a cowpuncher back in the days when the West was still pretty wild, beginning in the early 1880s.  Largely self-taught as an artist, his art captured the excitement and romance of a way of life that was rapidly dying out during his lifetime.  In 1897 Russell met Olaf Carl Seltzer (1877-1957), a talented Danish artist who became a close friend of his and whose influence was evident in Russell’s later paintings.  We had the benefit of a short personal tour from Carol Seltzer, a museum volunteer whose husband is a grandson of O.C. Seltzer.  Besides works by Russell and Seltzer, the museum displays paintings, sculptures, and photographs by others, plus an exhibit about buffalo (bison) and one on historical western firearms.  We were all very impressed with what this museum has to offer.