Oregon and Washington

1999

Kristin, Dan, and Karen on the lower Columbia River. We put in at County Line Park and paddled downstream around Cape Horn through Cathlamet Channel by Puget Island to the little town of Cathlamet. The area is sparsely developed, so it was a peaceful paddle, with only an occasional fisherman, eagle, or waterfall to keep us company.

 

That's Karen climbing up concrete stairs as if they were a ladder. We had wanted to go on this Perdition Trail along the Columbia River Gorge for a while, but it had been fenced off for a couple years due to landslides such as here where some steps tumbled away downhill. Fences are easy to bypass, though, so we had a very scenic, very overgrown hike all to ourselves!

 

Me and Karen in one of the McCredie natural hot springs. We could pick our desired temperature depending upon which pool we went into: it varied from scalding to warm. We shared the pools with old Russian women "improving their eyesight", naked fat shaven head tattooed biker-types, a voyeur guy using a metal detector, and some non-faker hippies.

 

Me and Karen on the shore of Waldo Lake in Oregon. We mountain biked around the lake's perimeter with Garrett and Shayona. Pretty surreal ride: one entire side of the lake had experienced a forest fire recently, so we rode on blowing dirt winding our way through an open sky forest of charred limbless tree trunks.

 

Me on the beach at Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We camped in the area and hiked across some of the Dungeness Spit (located the other direction from this photo), which is a 5 mile long, very thin natural sand spit that has attracted huge numbers of birds to live on its surf-protected side.

 

Hurricane Ridge in Washington's Olympic National Park. We hiked up to a high point that looked out across the Olympics in this direction and also looked over the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Canada and the San Juan Islands in the other direction.

 

Julie the Mummy, Dave the Mad Scientist, and Scott the Chicken Cord On Blue, rendezvousing at my condo before heading out to a Halloween party. Julie slowly unraveled, Dave went mad, and few people understood my costume... as it should be! (October 30, 1999)

 

Scott and Karen cross-country skiing around the woods and shoreline of Trillium Lake, at the base of Mt. Hood. First skiing of the season! Woohoo! (November 1999)