This morning I headed out to Mt. Olympic National Park in Washington State. Instead of going straight to the park, I headed West to the mouth of the Columbia River. During the early 19th century, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left St. Louis, MO set off on a mission to the West Coast; through Oregon, they canoed down part of the Columbia River. Currently, there are some National and State Parks around the river's end in both Oregon and Washington, there is also a great museum on the Oregon side.
I enjoyed the museum, they had a lot to display on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, current day Coast Guards, and the commercial shipping industry. This area combines the hard Pacific Ocean currents crashing into the end of the Columbia River with close to annual fog, cloud, and rain coverage, creating what is known as The Graveyard of the Pacific. I saw some pretty intense videos of large and small commercial freight boats getting thrown around by the waves. Because of this, the Coast Guard is among the top trained, prepared, and practiced in the country. And since this area on the West Coast (including both Portland & Seattle) is much closer to China's main ports than Los Angeles is, the Coast Guard gets a lot of practice.
After I finished up with the museum, I set off fo Mt Olympic National Park. It turns out that the Ranger Station is too far away for me to reach by 5pm (it is currently around noon), so I decided to go to Mt Rainier National Park, it turns out they have a Ranger Station that is open until 7pm. The drive through Washington was much different from Oregon, so far it has been nothing but trees. To my surprise, I passed a lot of logging sites and most of the trucks I passed were transporting tree trunks. I figured that, legally, it would be difficult to be in the logging industry in Washington.
After getting a little lost, I finally arrived and got my camping permit. Since I got in late, I chose a short hike to Snow Lake. Once I began the hike it started to rain. You'd think it would be a miserable hike, but the only bad part about it was that I knew the stuff in my bag would be wet. There was something about hiking in the woods, at night, and in the rain that truly added to the outdoor manly feeling you can get from camping; I really think my beard grew an inch that night.
I enjoyed the museum, they had a lot to display on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, current day Coast Guards, and the commercial shipping industry. This area combines the hard Pacific Ocean currents crashing into the end of the Columbia River with close to annual fog, cloud, and rain coverage, creating what is known as The Graveyard of the Pacific. I saw some pretty intense videos of large and small commercial freight boats getting thrown around by the waves. Because of this, the Coast Guard is among the top trained, prepared, and practiced in the country. And since this area on the West Coast (including both Portland & Seattle) is much closer to China's main ports than Los Angeles is, the Coast Guard gets a lot of practice.
After I finished up with the museum, I set off fo Mt Olympic National Park. It turns out that the Ranger Station is too far away for me to reach by 5pm (it is currently around noon), so I decided to go to Mt Rainier National Park, it turns out they have a Ranger Station that is open until 7pm. The drive through Washington was much different from Oregon, so far it has been nothing but trees. To my surprise, I passed a lot of logging sites and most of the trucks I passed were transporting tree trunks. I figured that, legally, it would be difficult to be in the logging industry in Washington.
After getting a little lost, I finally arrived and got my camping permit. Since I got in late, I chose a short hike to Snow Lake. Once I began the hike it started to rain. You'd think it would be a miserable hike, but the only bad part about it was that I knew the stuff in my bag would be wet. There was something about hiking in the woods, at night, and in the rain that truly added to the outdoor manly feeling you can get from camping; I really think my beard grew an inch that night.
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