Beast Trip, 2013

Well, it's been a year and Steve and I have just come back from our annual road trip.This time we headed up to the Northwest and ended up putting 2,400 miles on the Beast. After each of our trips we realize that there was some sort of theme to the adventure that was not necessarily planned. This year it turned out to be "Water." But, more about that later.

By Friday afternoon we had the van loaded and began the trip; first stop Smith Rocks in Oregon where Steve and Katie would climb. Unfortunately, we didn't quite make it that far. Fortunately, we found a wonderful campground in John Day, OR (http://www.rvparkreviews.com/regions/Oregon/John_Day.html).

We got in very late that night, but the next day when we went exploring we discovered that there were two tepees that one could rent.They looked just like our tepee.

Saturday afternoon we got to Smith Rocks (http://www.oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=36) and met up with Katie. It is a beautiful area with over 1,000 climbs.

 

Steve and Katie climbed Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. I either watched or went for a run.

 We then headed up to Portland and spent two nights with Katie at here cute, new house.

 She went to work, Steve and I played.

Tuesday morning we headed north to Anacortes, WA and took the ferry to Victoria, BC.We stayed at a wonderful, funky B&B, the Albion Manor, that I highly recommend (http://www.albionmanor.com/#).

The gardens at the manor.

While in Victoria we went to the BC Royal Museum; a wonderful Natural History museum. At the time there was a traveling exhibition: Race to the End of the Earth; the Scott/Amundsen Story.

And at the IMAX theater they were showing: Shakleton's Antarctic Adventure! We felt right at home.

 We spent two nights at the Albion Manor and on Thursday, as we were heading to the ferry, we stopped at the Butchart Gardens. Even though it was really past the plants' peak time, the gardens were beautiful. And I'm sure, even though there were lots of people, it was much less crowded than in the summer.

After the gardens we headed to the Butterfly Museum just down the street.

Then it was on to San Juan Island.

We camped at the San Juan State Park (http://www.co.san-juan.wa.us/Parks/sanjuan.aspx). close to Snug Harbor.

 

View from the campgrounds.

 Friday morning we explored the north west side of the island a little bit. There was a sculpture garden that has some very odd and unique sculptures. This was our favorite.

That afternoon we take a Whale watching charter with Captn Jim (http://www.mayaswhalewatch.biz/). We had seen the movie "Blackfish" (after seeing that and "The Cove" it would be hard to ever go to Sea World again.) and hoped to see Orcas in the wild. And we did!!

There were several charter boats out looking for whales and when some were spotted, they'd radio each other and all the boats would head over to the spot. We had a naturalist aboard and she had been studying the whales for years and could recognize the ones we saw by their dorsal fins and saddle. The more I learn about Orcas, the more I'm humbled by them. So, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to see them in the wild. Steve said afterwards that it made him feel a little weird; several boats chasing after the whales. And I agree, but I'm still glad I saw them.

 Saturday morning it was time for our three-day/two-night kayaking trip.We went with Crystal Seas Kayaking (http://www.crystalseas.com/) and had a wonderful time. We were with another couple from Chicago, but they were only out for one night. So they had a guide, and we had a guide.

William, Bob & Donna

Steve, Jane & Chris

 The couples had two-man kayaks and the guides were in singles. It is amazing how much stuff the kayaks can hold; tents, food, cooking equipment and clothes.

We knew the food was going to be great when we stopped at Posey Island for lunch and Chris and William made sandwiches with bread from the bakery, fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella cheese. 

The first night's dinner was fresh salmon.

We camped two nights on Stewart Island, which was perfect. I much prefer to put my tent up only once. And as it turned out, the second evening it rained, but everything was already up.

It's now Monday morning and I'm sitting at home in front of a real computer. I've gone through the blog and hopefully have added pictures. I'll quickly go over the last couple of days of our camping trip.

Thursday, the 20th, we played tourist: saw all the things one should see around Old Faithful. When we arrived at the area, Old Faithful was actually just beginning to erupt:

Sawmill Geyser:

Castle Geyser on right and Old Faithful on left:

Grand Geyser:

And other geothermal phenomenons:

After spending all day doing this it began to feel like "if you've seen one geothermal event, you've seen a hundred." So we bade Yellowstone a found farewell and headed to the Tetons to see how things would be there. In a word it was SMOKEY. We thought it was bad in Yellowstone, but the Tetons were twice as bad. We did find a nice camp spot in Colter Bay. As we were checking in the ranger said that one of the campers had seen a bear walk through their camp site an hour before. I'm glad we sleep in the Beast!

Friday morning we headed over to Jackson Lake Lodge to get a cup of coffee and look across the Willow Flats to the Tetons. It was so hazy you could barely see that there even were mountains there. It's so disappointing; normally the Tetons are awe-inspiring. But, we decided to go for a hike anyway - one that didn't rely on the views to be great. We went to Lupine Meadows trailhead where folks climbing the Grand start out. We didn't take that route, instead went to Bradley Lake - a 6 mile round trip hike. It was nice, but the air just felt thick with the smoke. We did get some nice views of the Tetons:

 But, decided it was time to head south and get out of the smoke.

We ended camping at a National Forest camp spot somewhere between Jackson Hole and Salt Lake. It was a nice spot - lots of camping places but very few campers. We talked with a couple of the other folks there and they, too, had left the Tetons due to the haze.

Here's our last night camping:

To sum it up, we had a wonderful trip, saw amazing things, did great hikes, had fabulous meals and the Beast did well. Plus, I had the best companion imaginable to do it all with. Steve, after two weeks, 1800 driving miles and 80+ hiking miles, thanks for another trip-of-a-lifetime.