NW road trip 2020

I went on a roadtrip last month! Wanted to share a bit.

eeee that's a lot of gas

Said hi to my mom and sister in Sonoma and gave them some pluots :)

Got a dream flight in from The Whaleback that evening which is right next to Mt. Shasta. 

It was damp and foggy and lush green on the Oregon coast, so I read a book. Caught these pebbles just as the rain was starting to fall on them. 

There is some delightful moss that grows on sand dunes up there. 

Blackberries are everywhere along the roads - I think you could go a long ways with them as fuel. Also so many berries I don't even know the names of. 

The logging is uncomfortably apparent - big swaths cut - I guess trees grow fast here. 

So many native names around.

 

This moss sloth says hello.

A mouse joined us in our tent for the night, occasionally running across our backs. It got in before we closed the zipper, then got out later through the wall. 

I learned that my old tent is no longer waterproof..

Saw some icefall checking out Mt Baker on skis. The low wispy clouds make everything feel magical.

This perfect ridge leads to the edge of the snowline.

Fireworks for childhood nostalgia while feeling sad about the 4th. Full moon on the train tracks. 

I lucked out with a fun triangle flying near Issaquah. I wanted to land back at my car to avoid risking a ride back, and the reliable clouds made it easy to keep plenty of altitude the whole time. 

The moss and concrete and enveloping green of Seattle feel right, everytime I visit.

While I was parked sleeping at Leavenworth, I had a mouse (or some critter) crawl in through my cracked window, find my trail mix, and leave a half eaten almond on my dashboard, along with some tiny poops. 

It lived, scratching around, in the interstices of the car for the next ~500mi. I'm sorry mouse.

I launched from above the town the next morning - it was on early ~9am! 

Then drove to Chelan and proceeded to bomb out, hiking back up to my car in the heat. I got myself an ice cream cone as consolation and sat by the cool river and read. I was warned, but still the dust devils here are kinda astonishing.

The next day, I had a beautiful evening soaring session, in the presence of a generous professional photographer. Then ate some Annies while enjoying the sunset on the butte.

Drove north the next day and managed to get a tour of the upper Methow valley from Goat Peak, following the XC clinic around. This is as close as I got to the alpine vol-biv that I was originally aiming for this summer.

Then followed the Columbia river south, camping on Saddle Mountain, and learning about its ancestral courses along the Grand Coulee. The hydro-geologic? history in this area is so apparent.

Final stop was Abert Rim, along 395. Almost Martian in the sunset light. After a short midday flight at Black Cap, winds turned on for soaring the Rim. Easy up, but a little too strong for comfort once I was in the air - pushing speed bar constantly didn't leave any time to take a photo of the view of the perfect endless mesa above the rim. A dust storm was headed up the valley towards me so I decided I wanted to be on the ground and landed. I think I saw a 'salt devil' in the distance over the salt flats.