Seashore to Mountain Top

Aug 29, 30, 31

Monday along the Seashore

About half of our day’s drive up the Oregon Coast was through the Oregon Dunes National Recreational Area, over 50 miles of huge sand dunes, some reaching 500 feet and sprouting small forests.

Grandma likes to see light houses, and there are many on this coast.

At Cook’s Chasm, we watched the power of the ocean as it crashed into the rocky coast, filing basins and caves with foamy saltwater and causing a crevice to “spout” like a whale!

   

          We camped at Beverly Beach State Park, rated No. 1 in the state, and went south into Newport by car to find local flavor and the perfect sunset. The largest and most active port on the coast, it’s harbor is teaming with activity.

And we watched the sunset at Paquina Bay. 

Tues, Goodbye Pacific

 
 We have reached the turning point of our journey. From this point on, we will head eastward toward home. There are still things to see and places to visit, but we have seen the last of the Pacific Ocean for this trip.

Next stop is Mt St Helens.     

Once dubbed the “Mt Fujii of the US”, this once symmetrical mountain was devastated by a volcanic eruption on May 18, 1980.

The series of blasts included a landslide, an explusion of superheated steam and ash, and monstrous mudslides, all of which obliterated and change the landscape forever!  

Since then, many forests were replanted, largely by Weyerhauser, and natural regrowth is happening slowly.  

Since then eruption 30 years ago, scientists have been studying Mt St Helens carefully. Rapid growth of the lava dome within the crater, and a series of earthquakes, suggested a possible repeat eruption in 2004 which never happened. Instead, a second, larger lava dome started building beside the first. Another anomaly is the rapid growth of a glacier within the crater, while other mountains are losing their glaciers to “global warming.” So Mt St Helens can truly be called a volcano of fire and ice!

   

 Though the peaks of the crater are covered in clouds, you can see the front edge of the glacier and part of the lava domes in this picture.

Wed., Cloudy Peaks and Flea Markets

Mt Rainier , at 14,410 feet and capped with up to 25 glaciers, is the tallest peak in the lower 48 states. It is generally shrouded in clouds, and that was how we found it today.

At it’s base, the town of Packwood is known as the “Quartzite of the North” and when we arrived the town was filling with miles of vendors tents for the upcoming weekend’s giant flea market for outdoorsmen and junk collectors. Aside from the vendors, it’s a charming little town.

Major construction at White Pass slowed us down, and by the time we got out of sight of Mt Rainier, the weather cleared….just our luck! But near Clear Creek Falls, I got this incredible shot by scaling the rocky path….and returned to the RV feeling like I’d climbed a mountain!

Now we’re crossing the high desert on our way to Spokane for the weekend.

Oregon’s Shore

Weekend of Aug 27, 28

As we travelled along the Oregon Pacific Coast northward, we came across coves, bays, marinas, seals, whales, and a botanical garden.

Oregon provides numerous State Park facilities along the Pacific. They are clean, well maintained, efficiently staffed, and mostly free. These parks range from simple pull-off overlooks to superior campgrounds, beaches to cliff-tops. The views are always magnificent, and access to the water is almost always included, though a bit too steep for us.

One stop was an overlook staffed with volunteers who pointed out the seals and sea lions nearby, although we could clearly hear them before we looked through binoculars.

The next overlook provided glimpses of a grey whale spouting and waving it’s tail for us. Photos are almost impossible to catch of this far away quick action.

Our campground was one of the top 10 in Oregon. 

Nearby is the Charleston Marina, an active fishing harbor, including good restaurants and a nice memorial to those lost at sea.

       Fresh Tuna available here.

One of the most spectacular parks we visited, Shore Acres, was once an estate of the very wealthy Louis Simpson family. Their home is gone, but their extensive botanical garden remains.

Other lovely homes are tucked into the cliffs along the coast.









Sometimes, Mother Nature puts too many clouds in the sky for us to view a fabulous sunset, even at Sunset Beach, but she did give us just a peek.

The Enchanted Forest

Fri, Aug 26, Oregon and California Coast

After a travel day on Thursday through amazing landscapes, we arrived in Brookings, OR, at a campsite 50 feet from the Pacific Ocean.

Along the way, we had picked up maps and info at the visitors center at the edge of the National Redwood Forest in CA, and this morning we set off for a tour through what Grandpa nicknamed The Enchanted Forest.

The rugged coastal area was largely unexplored until Jedediah Smith, at trapper looking for another route, discovered the Redwood forests in 1826. Today, the best viewing of these giants is in Jedediah Smith State Park in northern California.

The Coast Redwood, one of three types of redwood trees, is the tallest, up to 400 feet tall, with a trunk reaching up to 25 ft across. They have weather and insect resistant bark, a cone about the size of an olive, which take up to 2 years to fall, and seeds smaller than a tomato.

In the days of the dinosaurs, Redwoods were prevalent in all the Northern Hemisphere, but have receded to specific habitats to survive, and Coast Redwoods can only be found along the fog shrouded North California coastal areas. Global warming has reduced the fog, and scientists are studying the long term effects this is having on the redwoods.

The fog gives this area a rainforest environment. Here ferns are waist high and even clover grows to enormous size.

And like all good tourists, we stopped at Trees of Mystery to say hello to Paul Bunyon, and drove thru a Redwood.

Of course, to see Coastal Redwoods, we travelled along the Pacific Coast in Northern California. In Klamath, we saw a bridge that had been wiped out by floods, along with the town itself, in 1964, and had great views of the river meeting the ocean from High Bluff Overlook.

We stopped in Crescent City to see the beach and harbor, and have fresh salmon for lunch. The view from the restaurant included these harbor seals, who have taken up year round residence there, while the rest of their type travels far north in the summer. The Mermaid watches over the Harbor.

As the fog has parted, we plan to view the sunset from our ringside seat here along the beach in Oregon.