Category: Cross Country Tour

24 September 2016

OK, I’m officially in a state of nirvana. The ultimate goal of this trip was to see Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge and I did it.

Many years ago, I saw a photo of this waterfall and decided I wanted to see this.  The photograph was stunning and I did have an idea it could not be as beautiful as portrayed in the photo, but worth the effort to see it in any case.  Boy, is this thing beautiful! More on this later.

I started out a little late this morning.  I woke at 6 am and was on the road by 8 am.  Wouldn’t you know it, it was a blue sky day with perfect temps in the low 30’s. As I drove past The Watchman on my way out of Crater Lake, I had a tremendous urge to stop and do the hike, but I was on a schedule and had already done the hike two years ago.

As I traveled, I kept seeing this snow covered peak.  It finally dawned on me it was Mount Hood.  As I got closer, it got more spectacular.

In any case, I headed to Columbia River gorge in Hood River, Oregon and checked into the historic Columbia River George Hotel.  What a great place!  My room was not ready (2 pm) so I decided to drive to Multonmah Falls to see what it would be like for tomorrow.

The place was a zoo.  Cars were parked on the sides of the road and there was a back up of traffic forever.  I tried to find a parking place to no avail, so I headed up the road and turned around, thinking of an early start the next day when a parking space opened up.

I did not realize how the falls were so close to the road and there is a restaurant and gift shop as well as a ranger station on the site.  You can walk right up to the scene in everyone’s photos and the sight of the falls was everything I expected.

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I decided while there, to walk to the bridge in the photo which was 0.2 miles away and when there decided what-the-hell, climb to the top.  It was a mile in distance, straight up with 11 switchbacks.  I can tell you it was a bit of a climb but I made it surprisingly well.  The traffic on the trail was like Grand Central Station at rush hour.  You needed traffic cops to sort it out.

What they didn’t tell you was the last switch back was downhill quite a ways, which meant a steep climb to the next to the last switchback on the return.  It was worth the effort, worth the trip.  Everything before and since has been icing on the cake.

I met a couple from Albuquerque and we got into a friendly banter about the trail, our itinerary, and retirement – he’s wanting to.  Everyone on the trail was super friendly and realized how difficult the climb to the summit was and encouraged everyone along the way.

I returned to the hotel and had dinner there at Simon’s.  This is a great old hotel with an elevator that must be operated by someone at the desk, like I remember as a kid – “3rd floor, men’s”.  I had an outstanding halibut and I’m sorry to admit, 2 martinis – well, not really sorry.

The hotel sits on the banks of the Columbia River, impressive in it’s own right, and my window overlooks the river.  On the wall of the rooms and in the hallways are the prints that I remembered as a kid from my grandparents of the golden age with lovers in swings, languid images of women staring into space, etc.  To me, this was the art of the 1910’s and 1920’s before Art Deco.

My intention is to get up early-ish tomorrow and head back to that area of Multnomah Falls and see other waterfalls along historic highway 30.

 

23 September 2016

There was ice on the jeep when I got up.  I headed to Annie’s Creek Restaurant for breakfast and then, with good intentions, headed to Watchman Peak to hike the 1.6 mile up and back trail. They were repaving the west rim road and I had to be escorted via 1 lane to the pull off.  When I got out of the car, it was 32F with a stiff wind, light rain and you could barely see the summit.  I decided to wait for better weather.

I had to wait again to get back on the west rim road and traveled it until I started the return trip on the east rim road.  There are several great overlooks on the east rim road and I took advantage of Cloudcap Overlook, Phantom Ship Overlook, Sun Notch, and a few unnamed ones.

My first “hike” of the day, if you can call it that, was a 0.5 mile loop at Sun Notch to get a great view of Phantom Ship Island.

Most people know the large island in Crater Lake is Wizard Island, but Phantom Ship (supposedly the pinnacles look like ship masts) is often overlooked.

There are several additional potential islands in the lake if the water level drops which is entirely possible because Crater Lake is formed from rainfall – it is not fed by any springs or rivers.
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One additional stop was Vidae Falls.  All you have to do is pull off the road and it’s there in front of you.  It is a fairly tall fall but not with a tremendous amount of water flow.

I returned to the cabin for lunch and then tried one more time for The Watchman – a spectacular hike.  Again the road wait but when I got to the pull out, the weather was actually worse.  You couldn’t see the top at all.  I don’t know how the road crews do it but they were laying asphalt in that weather when visibility was about 15 feet.

I decided it was a good day to curl up in bed so I started back to the cabin when Godfrey Glen Trail caught my eye.  It’s found near Mazama Vikkage and it is a 1.0 mile “easy” loop along Munson Creek Canyon. You can hear Duwee Falls as you walk the trail but the canyon is too steep to see the falls.

 

Tomorrow I set out for Columbia River Gorge to eventually see Multnomah Falls, the prime reason for this trip.  Everything I’ve done so far has been planned around this stop.  I hope for good weather the next day so I can get some good shots.  Then I intend to view numerous other falls and overlooks along the gorge.

22 September 2016

I’m at the half way point of the trip and boy, does a night in a bed with a shower make a difference.  I woke around 6:30 am, late for me, and got on the road by 8 am.

The drive from Redding to Crater Lake was really nice.  It had some wide open spaces that reminded me of my days in Montana.

Confession time.  I’m over backpacking in to sites and pitching a tent.  The hike into and out of Glen camp pretty much did me in.  It’s day hikes from here on out with hotels and lodges for the sleeping accommodations.

I lucked out at Crater Lake.  I had wanted to stay in the Mazama Village cabins but they were completely booked a year ago.  Last night in the Super 8 in Redding, I checked again and they had a vacancy!  It’s cabin C-4 for me for the next two nights.  I was too late to cancel the tent reservation but let them know when I checked in in case someone wanted  my tent space.  Not likely.  I talked to a young couple while washing clothes this afternoon and it snowed on them last night.

For the remainder of the trip, I have hotels/motels for Yellowstone; Caprock Canyons, TX; and Mineral Wells, TX.  In Yellowstone, the closest I could get was the town of West Yellowstone, but I know that place and it is very close to Old Faithful and my center of operations there.

I arrived at Crater Lake around 1 pm to snow flurries.  I quickly drove to the rim and got a few shots of the lake at the Crater Lake Lodge as snow began to obscure Wizard Island.

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I then started to drive to a hike I wanted to do called the Watchtower, but the snow really started coming down with such intensity it obscured the road.  I decided to come back down off the rim and do it tomorrow.  I needed to wash clothes anyway.

To be honest, it was thrilling to drive through the snow on the twists and turns of the rim road.  The jeep does everything automatically.  The seat warmed up, the steering wheel warmed up and the windshield wipers kept time to the music I was playing.  The only thing I had to do was turn on the window defroster.

I have a special relationship with snow.  I love watching it fall and I love the acoustical silence it provides.  I love walking in it, feeling the individual flakes pelting your skin.  I suspect the young couple will get more snow tonight!

I stopped for a brief 0.4 mile loop called Castle Crest which I loved in June two years ago for the wildflowers.  I didn’t expect much this time of year but did get to see some Monk’s Hood still in bloom.

I finally got the washing done and met the young couple I mentioned who were on a 30 day circuit of national parks.  We compared notes on various parks and made suggestions to each other on ones we intended to visit.

I ate dinner at Annie’s Creek Restaurant in Mazama Village – fixed chicken which was surprisingly good.  It was certainly better than the fancy restaurant at the Crater Lake Lodge that I dined at two years ago – and cheaper.

Tomorrow is some day hikes around the rim.

21 September 2016

OK, I’m officially beat.  With yesterday’s hike in and today’s hike out, I’m wiped.  Instead of camping out at Whiskeytown/Trinty/Shasta, I’m checked in to a Super 8 in Redding, CA, near the campground.  I needed a shower in the worst way, the stinging nettle is still a little sensitive and I am exhausted.  I’ll drive to Crater Lake tomorrow and assess my physical state then.  I’m scheduled for two nights of camping there.

I remembered the hike into the campsite as all up hill but I was mistaken, as I found out this morning on my return.  I just didn’t remember the downhill parts yesterday.  It took me about 3 1/2 hours to hike out this morning and that was with plenty of rest stops, so the pace wasn’t too bad.
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As I started the drive to Whiskeytown, I realized how tired I was and I had to force myself to stay awake.  I got plenty of good sleep last night, it just must have been the physical effort.  It didn’t help my ego that three joggers ran past me on my way back to the jeep.

Probably not service at Crater Lake so you may not hear from me for a few days.

20 September 2016

I’m not sure what happened to me yesterday but I was done in. Instead of hiking 4.6 miles into Glen camp at Point Reyes National Seashore, I camped at Tomales Bay Resort for the night. I splurged on the motel room, splurged on dinner at Saltwater Oyster Bar and didn’t get my $10 worth of camping site.

Whatever it was, I felt much better today and headed for Bear Valley Visitor Center where the trailhead for Glen camp begins. There were deer everywhere at the visitor center, totally unconcerned about us early morning hikers.

Before I got to camp, I got up close and personal with a covey of quail. I’ll have to be wait until I get to my bird book to determine which species. They looked perfectly black with a cute top knot but they were in the shade and I may not have seen their markings.

Another interesting discovery was a banana slug crawling across the trail. They are huge!

Thus, we levitra generic no prescription have got Kamagra, Kamagra oral jelly, Silagra, Zenegra and Forzest etc. some of the online pharmacies do not take heavy meals which contains fats. After consumption it went into the body and cheap levitra prescription relaxes muscles and blood vessels in a man’s genitals, allowing greater blood flow for an erection; and by acting on enzymes as mentioned, helps maintain the erection when sexually stimulated. The function of these experts is to ensure that free sildenafil samples each of their patients restored back their problems quickly. If you are thinking of repairing the machine by yourself, then the first thing you need buy viagra online cute-n-tiny.com to do is turning off the power. I think I must have gotten started around 9:15 am on the trail. I made it to the camp just a little after noon. It was mostly uphill. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to hike in yesterday. I don’t think I had the energy. The trail is actually a road bed and I shared it with morning walkers, cyclists, and horse riders. The camp has potable water and a double toilet so it’s considered a really nice camp. I’m in site 11, directly across from the toilet and more importantly, in the shade. They also have boxes to lock up your food at night to keep the raccoons out. Mice still get in but larger animals can’t.

Once I set up camp, I wanted to do a little more hiking so I set out for Wildcat camp 2.5 miles away and on the beach. In particular, I wanted to walk to Alamere falls just down the beach from Wildcat. I just about made it when the fog started rolling in and I decided there wouldn’t be much to see in pea soup fog so I started back.

On the way to Wildcat, I stopped to photograph some wildflower and got an intense burning sensation in my left leg, just below the knee. I had knelt on a stinging nettle. I had forgotten how intense the pain could be. As I write this, it still burns.

All in all, it was 7.19 miles but 4.6 was with a pack with an elevation gain of 1156 feet and a maximum elevation of 1270 feet. I’m a tired puppy.

So far, there is only a young couple in campsite 5. They walked back from Alamere falls and told me the fog was ok this morning but had begun to roll in during the afternoon.

I think dinner tonight will be beef stroganoff. I’ll pack out tomorrow morning and head to Whiskeytown/Mount Shasta National Recreational Area.

Later in the afternoon a single hiker came into site #3 and we’ve had some good conversation. He’s pretty hard core. He did 13 miles today and will do 20 tomorrow. Even later, a threesome came in and pitched camp next to me at site 10. At least the hard core guy is older. The threesome is two guys and a girl probably in their 20’s. They have a lot of energy. Hope they sleep some tonight.

19 September 2016

I must be getting old.  I was scheduled to hike into a campsite at Pt. Reyes National Seashore (4.7 miles) and camp two nights.  When I got the permit the ranger suggested now would be the time to see the Pt. Reyes lighthouse since it closed at 4:30 pm today and it would not be open Tuesday or Wednesday.  I agreed since it was on my agenda, and headed out.

Getting to Point Reyes National Seashore took me over the Golden Gate Bridge, by Muir Woods, and Stinson Beach over twisty, curvy, steep roads.  I managed to probably average 40 miles an hour.  Stay with me, I’m building up to something.

To get to the light house from Bear Valley Visitor Center where I registered took 45 minutes on the same curvy, twisty type roads.  Once you parked, it was 0.4 miles to the steps leading to the lighthouse.  They go down, down, down for about the depth of a 30 story building.  The view were amazing and you could hear the surf pounding the rocks.

Eventually, I had to climb the steps.  I did ok so I guess all that hiking paid off – that and I was not at 7,000 feet elevation.  There was another short hike to another point from the parking lot.

I had lunch overlooking the Pacidic Ocean and watched whales spouting in the distance.
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From there, I drove 2.2 miles (twisty, curvy) to the parking lot for Chimney Rock and Elephant Seal Overlook.  The hike out to Chimney Rock was 0.9 miles and you had great vistas of the Pacific and more whales spouting.

After I returned to the parking lot, I took the Elephant Seal Overlook trail but didn’t see any elephant seals, but I did hear their bellows.  There were plenty of otters playing in the water and a group had gathered to watch them and debate whether they were sea otters or river otters.  No consensus was reached.

As I got back in the jeep to head back to Bear Valley Visitor Center and the trail head for my campsite, I decided I just wasn’t up to a 4.7 mile hike with pack.  I figure I had already done over 3 miles this afternoon.  I’ve already concluded my limit is around 6 miles a day with pack.  So, having come up with enough excuses, I decided to camp in a motel room.

I checked into the Tomales Bay Resort for a room for the night.  I’m already thinking I may just head north tomorrow and perhaps put off camping for a while to spend an extra day at the Columbia River Gorge.  I’ll keep you posted, regardless.

18 September 2016

Dream of the Red Chamber was a bust. I left at intermission. I kept trying to doze off during the performance and I thought the first act would never end. It probably  didn’t help that San Francisco decided to get its first day of summer today. It’s been quite warm, more typical for this time of year. I may have to take the blanket off the bed tonight and use a fan.

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I’ve enjoyed the city but have a hankering to get away from the noise for a while. However, I hear they have particularly aggressive raccoons at Pt. Reyes who won’t take no for an answer.

17 September 2016

The day started out cold and foggy in San Franciso but by noon, the fog dissipated and it started to warm up. September in San Francisco is usually hot, but my friend Wade, who is a longtime resident of the city, said this has been a long, cold, foggy summer.

Usually, when I’m in town, I buy either a three day or week MUNI pass which allows me on all city transit, including the cable cars and transfers.  However, since my travels in the city will be mostly back and forth to the opera house, it was cheaper to buy a clipper card and put a few dollars on it.  That’s one of main things I like about San Francisco – excellent public transportation.

Around noon, I grabbed the J line near the Parker House and got off at the Powell Street Station for a quick walk to Neiman Marcus at Union Square for lunch at the Rotunda with my friend Wade.  I last saw him in Fort Lauderdale a few months ago and he kindly treated me to lunch at the Rotunda. We had a grand time talking old friends, trips, and such and before we knew it, we had spent about 2 1/2 hours at a prime window seat overlooking Union Square where they had a Korean Festival going on.  NM, to their credit, didn’t try to rush us.

I rode the MUNI back to the Parker House and relaxed a little, had some wine and munchies at their wine social and then headed to the War Memorial for the night’s opera, André Chénier which was excellent! The opera is by Umberto Giordano and is not often performed anywhere.  It was first performed in San Francisco in 1923 and has only been on the stage here 11 times in the entire history of the opera house.  Four performers stood out: George Gagnidze as Carlo Gérard, Anna Pirozzi as Maddalena di Coigny, Yanghoon Lee as André Chénier, and J’Nai Bridges as Bersi.  Gagnidze is from Tbilsi, Georgia; Pirrozi from Naples; Italy, Lee from Seoul, Korea; and Bridges from Lakewood, Washington so it was quite the international, star-studded cast. 
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The opera is based on a real person (Chénier) during the French Revolution. The stage design was over the top along with period costuming. It was four acts with one intermission.  The opera has its detractors but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Today, I intend to do a little prepacking for tomorrow’s trip to Pt. Reyes National Seashore and then I have a 2 pm opera, Dream of the Red Chamber, based on a classic of Chinese literature and co-created by the San Francisco Opera for its world premier.

After leaving San Francisco, I have five nights of tent camping: two at Point Reyes where I have to backpack in to the site, one enroute to Crater Lake at Whiskeytown, CA and two at Crater Lake where the overnight temperature was 35F. Stay tuned!

16 September 2016

 

I opted to head straight to San Francisco instead of a side trip to Pinnacles National Park.  I needed a haircut and needed to wash clothes and needed a martini.  I can use the excuse of another trip out west to visit the Pinnacles.

It was a little over four hours to reach San Francisco and amazingly the traffic wasn’t too bad.  I usually get held up at the Oakland Bay Bridge because of toll lanes but I breezed through today.

I checked in at the Parker Guest House, my usual haunt while in San Francisco and immediately headed for a haircut.  I was so relieved to get the fuzz off, I stopped into Twin Peaks for my obligatory martini.

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Once I got back to the room, I gathered dirty clothes and headed to the laundromat. An hour later and I was good to go.  As I sit here writing this, I’m in the garden of the Parker House with a cup of coffee, sitting in the shade and contemplating dinner later tonight.

Tomorrow, I have lunch with my good friend Wade at the Rotunda, Neiman Marcus downtown.  Later that night, I have the first of two operas, Andrea Chenier.

Wine social at the Parker begins at 5:30 pm!

15 September 2016
After going to bed last night a little after 8 pm, I woke at 4:30 am. I was dressed and ready to go by 6 am and walked to the jeep to find I had left the hatch open last night. Lights on, etc. No bears were interested in the dehydrated food. I think that tells me something.

I decided to start the day with Sequoia National Park, a beautiful, harrowing 27 mile drive up and down. Sequoia has more redwoods than King’s Canyon, at least to my eye, and they are the largest I’ve seen. I thought the ones in Yosemite were large, but these are gigantic. By the way, the temperature was 43F this morning at Grant Village but 32F in Sequoia.

My idea was to stop at the visitor center and then have breakfast. The center was open but not the “restaurant”. After a short talk with the ranger, I decided to start with General Sherman’s tree, the most massive tree in the U.S. and probably the world. Each year it adds enough growth for one mature oak tree. It was a downhill walk of 0.5 miles and you know the trouble with that. It was 0.5 miles back up hill. I’ve learned to rest frequently!

My next stop in Sequoia was Moro Rock, an impressive climb of stairs and steps (mostly in concrete) with an elevation of over 6,700 feet at the top with clear vistas of neighboring mountain ranges and the valley below. It was absolutely stunning. At least on this hike, it was downhill on the way back. The hike up and down is not for the faint hearted or for those afraid of heights.

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My last hike of Sequoia was a 1.3 mile loop to Crescent Meadow. It was mostly level with massive redwoods and plenty of shade. Like all of the hikes so far, including the two just mentioned, my GPS always reads a longer distance. Since this determined by satellite with numerous data points, I think the GPS is probably more accurate. I suspect the park service measured the trails years ago with the old wheel device.

I stopped for lunch at the so called restaurant at the Sequoia visitor center which was really just a grill. I had a hamburger and fries – that seems to be both parks’ specialties. Then came the 27 mile return trip to King’s Canyon and a short drive to Grant’s Grove to see the General Grant tree. It is supposedly the second largest tree, after the General Sherman. Since Sherman had the bigger tree named after him, I wonder if it was the politics of the time.

When I get up tomorrow, I need to decide whether or not to stop at Pinnacles National Park on the way to San Francisco. It would add a minimum of four hours to a four hour drive to San Francisco. I figure if I sleep late tomorrow, I’ll head straight to San Francisco. If I get up early, I’ll squeeze in the pinnacles.