Wandering Finns

During the last week of September, hot Santa Ana winds were blowing through the Southern California. Temperatures were soaring even along the coast.

It was a perfect weekend to get together with friends at the El Capitan State Beach.

Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles National Park is located east of Salinas valley in Central California. It is one of the newest National Parks. Although it was established as a National Monument in 1908 it received the National Park status in 2013.

Our North West journey has taken us through amazing landscapes  back to our home state, California.

We found a wonderful free campsite north of Fort Bragg, along the Highway 1 overlooking the rocky shores of the Pacific Ocean.  In the morning we woke up with the sounds of the waves hitting the shore. The air was filled with soft light when the sun finally was able to burn through the thick marine layer.

We left our RV at a RV campground and packed our tent camping gear in our yellow Bumble Bee. It was time to return to our home base of Los Angeles for a short visit.

We drove the winding Highway 1 to our first camping location at the Cape Reyes National Seashore. We have always used Allstays.com with great success to find all kinds of camping locations. This time the website guided us wrong. We never found the campground. but while searching the way we found something more special. We saw a heard of elk, right along the road!

After spending a night at the Olema campground along the PCH, we returned to the peninsula to visit the famous Pt Reyes Lighthouse. Road to the lighthouse travels through beautiful open grasslands, and through several historic ranches. During our early morning drive, we shared the road with milk trucks picking up milk from the dairy ranches.

On our return trip in Oregon, we returned to our previous campground in Boring, Oregon. The town didn’t get its name from being a boring place; it was named after an early pioneer farmer William Boring. The town plays with the name. They even selected a Scottish village of Dull as their sister city.

We were in Boring during their annual festival car show. The exhibition field was full of old meticulously refinished antique cars, and also newer customized vehicles.

Olympic Peninsula, Washington

We spent the Labor Day weekend with friends visiting the beautiful sights around the Olympic Peninsula.

Happy 100th birthday, National Park Service! 

Lake Chelan is like a ribbon of crystal bending through the deep canyons. It is a narrow lake stretching 50 miles into the Cascadian wilderness. With the maximum depth of 1,486 ft., it is the third deepest lake in the USA right after Crater Lake and Lake Tahoe.

Towns of Chelan and Manson are located on the southern end of the lake. There are also many vineyards and apple orchards adding green color to the otherwise brown landscape. We visited few of the wineries and cider houses tasting their delicious offerings. Lately we have visited wineries that offer sit down winetasting. Instead of standing at the bar and getting wine poured to you one at a time, you are served all your selected wines at the same time and you can sit comfortably at the table or couch and enjoy your wine at your own pace.

The following day, we went to explore the lake and the up lake community of Stehekin 50 miles from Chelan. It is a small community reachable only by a boat or by a floatplane. They have about 80 people living in the village a year around, but the population multiplies during the busy summer season.

Once we reached the village, we took a bus ride to the end of the road Along the way we stopped at The Stehekin Garden, and at The Bakery. There were surprisingly many cars for a village you cannot drive to and that has a main road of only 11 miles long.

At the end of the road we walked to the bridge to look at the river and the beautiful North Cascades National Park scenery.

During the bus ride we met several Pacific Crest Trail hikers on the side trip to the village to pick up food supplies. We talked with one guy who had started his hike on the April 16th at the Mexican border. At this point he has only three more hiking days and 85 miles until the end of the trail at the Canadian border.

Before we had to get back in the boat, we had time to sit at the chairs by the lake and enjoy our lunch.

The return trip back to Chelan lasted four hours. We stopped several times on the way to drop off and pick up hikers.

Sandpoint, Idaho

Our journey continued from the cool mountain air to the hot valley along the Salmon River. Luckily the cool nights offered us some respite from the hot days. 

Since the heat wasn’t inviting for any hiking, we went exploring the Snake River Hells Canyon area. 

After few hours of driving we reached an area where we were able to look down to the canyon floor and a see a glimpse of the Snake River. By then the road was a little more than a wide hiking trail. Since we didn’t know exactly about the condition of the road in front of us, we decided to turn around. We just have to return to the area at another time to explore this deep canyon by foot.

There have been several forest fires in the West. While driving along the Salmon River, we saw a water dropping helicopter in action. 

Whitehouse Campground

Clearwater National Forest Whitehouse campground is a beautiful campsite among towering cedar trees along a slowly flowing Lochsa river. The area is also knows as “Lewis and Clark country."

It takes about an hour to drive to Garnet from Missoula. In that hour you travel from a modern, vibrant small town back in time to the wild west where miners worked hard making living and spending their earnings in many saloons lining the streets.

The last miles of the road easily transport the traveler to the old times. It was rough driving even with modern automobiles, because the road was covered with some of the deepest washboard I have ever experienced.

In 1898 Garnet had about 1,000 people. In addition of many hastily built miners cabins, it had four stores, four hotels, doctor’s office, school, union hall, and 13 saloons. It was more family friendly and more cultured than other mining towns of the era.  

Eventually, all the minerals were removed and the mines closed. By 1905 the town had only 105 people and in 1940, Garnet was an empty ghost town.

An outhouse near a miner’s cabin.

Miners’ cabins were built very fast. They didn’t have luxuries like wooden floors or high ceilings. 

Old store.

Inside the J.B. Wells Hotel.

One of the saloons.

Ever since our last visit in Missoula a year ago, we wanted to come back and explore more the town and the surrounding area.

Our camp site was among tall trees near a shallow Lolo creek. The creek is in the bottom of a deep canyon surrounded by steep rocky hillsides and thick forests.

This is the landscape where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery traveled along an old Nez Perce trail on their way to Pacific and back. Due to the rocky hillside the trail traveled away from the creek, high on the mountain ridge.

Near our campsite was Travelers’ Rest State Park, the only archaeologically verified campsite of Lewis and Clark. It is quite interesting how they found the old camp site using information gained from diary entries, special imaging equipment that recorded underground marks, and information gathered from old latrines. While the Corps of Discovery were at Travelers Rest, few of the soldiers were treated with strong laxative pills containing mercury. By checking on the mercury levels in the soil, the archaeologists were able to find the exact location of the old latrine. 

The fir tree in the photo above is over 200 years old. It was already at the edge of the field when Lewis and Clark stopped there.

From the Lolo creek campsite, we traveled to a tightly packed commercial campground right outside of Missoula. Our location was on the edge of the grass covered prairie where the large sky stretched over us. Every night the sky offered us the most amazing light show!

Glacier National Park

A year ago we visited the western side of the Glacier National Park. The visit made such a strong impression that we wanted to return to this magical land.

Crypt Lake Trail

Hike to the Crypt Lake and back is among our favorite hikes. The National Geographic also lists the hike among the best hikes in the world.

Here is their description of the hike:

Waterton Lakes National Park is the most southern of the Canadian Rocky Mountain National Parks. Together with its southern US neighbor park they form Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

The scenery in the park is breathtaking with sharp alpine mountains, blue lakes, and many waterfalls. Everything was made even more beautiful with the perfect weather. The sky was clear and the sun bathed the landscape with its warm glow.

The Prince of Wales Hotel is one of the iconic old National Park hotels. It sits on top of a hill reminding me of old fairy-tale castle.

Once inside the hotel, the view to the Waterton Lake and the surrounding mountains fills your senses with beauty and takes your breath away.

Parks Canada has distributed red Adirondack chairs throughout the parks on scenic locations. On the shore of the Waterton Lake we found two of the chairs waiting to be sat on. Sitting at the lake in front of the magnificent view and breathing the fresh mountain air melts your worries and stress and centers you in the place where beauty and serenity rules.

Jasper National Park is the most northern of the five National Parks in the Canadian Rockies.

The park has many amazing vistas to see, even during rainy days when the clouds hang low and drizzle makes everything wet. After driving around and visiting some of the sights, we visited the local farmers market in Jasper and settled in a local pub for a beer and cider and free Wi-Fi.

Our rainy day hike took us to the foot of the Mt Edith Cavell. 

We were able to admire Angel Glacier with its wide wings spreading on the mountain side. Water from the glacier flowed down to Cavell Pond where we could see chunks of ice floating on the water. During the warm summer days large pieces of ice can fall in the pond creating flash flood in the surrounding area.

144 miles long Icefield Parkway connects Jasper National Park to its neighbor, Banff National Park. The scenery along the road is breathtakingly beautiful. Luckily there are many pullouts along the road where to stop and admire the view.

One of the stops was at Athabasca Falls.