Hiking Mt. St. Helen

Just an hour drive from where we camped, we arrived at the first Mt. St. Helen lookout. Even before the lookout, the destructive event and aftermath from St. Helen eruption 30+ years ago was hard to miss. You are looking at mother nature still trying to recover 30 years after every bit of life was wiped out in hundreds of thousands of square miles. It gave me chills. What brightens up the lifeless is the blooming wild flowers, creating such contrast.

Kept on driving towards Windy Ridge, a visitor's center and a head of Windy Ridge hiking trail, we saw clouds obstructing the view of the famous St. Helen. Parked at the visitor's parking lot, we started to hike up. Half way through the hike, you get a better view of the clear side of the Spirit Lake. I say clear side, because the other side is till this day covered in layers of dead burnt timbers from the blast.

life among the dead

Another 10 min up the hill, the trail makes a right turn and reveals our first full view of Mt. St. Helen. You would notice the left side of the mountain is still snow-covered, while the right side (the blasted side) has a giant crater in the middle of it.

After Windy Ridge, we made our way back to the car and drove to Harmony trail, which would lead us all the way down to the Spirit Lake to see the dead trees floating on the water. The first half of the trail was surrounded by lush growth of bushes and young trees that provided much needed shade. Once you descent to the valley floor, there's barely any shade. All you see if wild flowers among dead trees on either side of a sandy trail.

The view of the dead trees covered half of the lake takes your breath away. So does getting down to the water. We jumped from parched logs to parched logs. The water is crystal clear.

First camping trip ever

There's been a lot of expectations around my first camping trip. Friends were curious how I like it. So was I. To ease into it, we decided to do one overnight camping followed by hiking in Mt. St. Helen.
Lenka and Chris suggested a camp ground, Iron Creek, about 1hr northeast of St. Helen.

The camp ground was full by the time we got there around 5:30pm on a Friday. Not wanting to go home empty handed, we drove around to see if there were other camp grounds nearby with availability. Luckily we found a private one by Tower Rock, just 15min down the road from Iron Creek. It's run by an elderly couple on a few acres of open land with small fish ponds. There were flush toilets and fishing equipment rental. We were sold immediately.

our camp spot with a picnic table and a fire ring

a small pond behind our camp spot

fish pond in camp ground

First off, setting up tents. It's pass 7pm now, time for dinner. Chris bought a brand new two burner stove that runs on propane. We have chicken wrap and shrimp/veggie saute on the menu. I had everything pre-washed, cut and seasoned. It's just a matter of warming up everything and assembling together. It took about 45 min for dinner to be ready. Food was excellent, even more so when you ate under the darkening cloudy starless evening sky.

chicken wrap

By the time plates were empty, it was too dark to do dishes. We packed up the dirty dishes and got ready to set up a camp fire. 8 bucks got us a wheel barrel full of fire wood, more than what we could use. I just sat and watched Chris and Jose building a fire, and snapped some really cool photos of the crackling flame. The night fall also brought frog songs, the classic sound of the country side.

building a fire

the crackling fire would send sparks into the air like fireworks

Not sure how many hours had passed before we decided to call it a night and went to our tents. It's so dark out here without any lights. Part of the appeal I guess. The frogs' singing was still going strong. I had never been inside a tent before. It's roomier than it looks on the outside. I had borrowed Jose's old fleece sleeping bag, hoping it would be warm enough for the night.

It wasn't.

take a peek inside the tent

Next morning I woke up with frozen toes at 5:30am. It was still quiet outside with occasional bird chipping in the trees. The rain fly over the tent kept us and our shoes dry. After a quick freshening up, we started preparing breakfast. Chris was the chef this time, while Lenka pulled out a banana bread she made ahead of time. We cook water for tea and cocoa to take the chill out of our body.

breakfast sausage, potato wedges and eggs

Lenka's yummy banana bread

After breakfast and dish washing, we planned out what we would go to hike, packed up our stuff, paid the camp owner and drove off to Mt. St. Helen.

I can see myself doing this again. I was skeptical before, but I think I can handle this, as long as there are flush toilets. =)

Rafting trip on lower clackamas river

Ceci, Jose and I bought on a Livingsocial deal on a rafting trip in Oregon City, 15-20 min south of downtown. We called to reserve the trip for this Saturday, which turned out to a perfect day. There's not a wisp of cloud in the sky. The temp was in the low 80s.

After 15 min of trying to figure out the logistics and another 15 min of getting stranded on the highway and almost getting lost, we managed to get to the starting point of the rafting trip, which is not where we were told to meet the group. At one point, I was thoroughly confused and decided to just follow Jose and Ceci. The company that organizes the trips, Northwest River Guides, seemed overwhelmed by the responses from livingsocial deal that they were struggling to get things organized. So we didn't get off a good start.

Our guide was a young guy named Ben, who was trying to make witty remarks that fail to solicit any response from the rafting crowd. Everyone was still a bit pissed by the start and couldn't wait to get in the water.

Unfortunately we were told to leave all things behind, unless its water proof, I couldn't bring the camera with us. These were the only photos I was able to get before leaving it in the car. We also had to put on life jackets, the only reason I agreed to do the trip since I don't swim.

that's our raft

lower clackamas river

Jose and Ceci having a talk with our guide Ben, the buy in yellow

Once on the water, the mood of the crowd lightened up. Something about floating on cool water just calms you down. Everyone was also busy trying to memorize the different paddle commands and various paddling strokes. Jose volunteered as the stroke captain and took the job seriously. Whenever the guide said "all forward", Jose would go "stroke, stroke, stroke..." It cracked me up.

It may look easy, but paddling is a serious core workout. It's a small raft that held three people each side. We got a 12-yr old boy on my side who's more interested in riding the bull on the front of the raft than paddling. That means me and the other guy behind me had to work extra hard.

We weren't paddling the entire time, as we were going down the stream. There were a few rapids during the trip, level I and II. Nothing spectacular for seasoned rafters, but for people who've never rafted before, like myself, it was super fun. Dotting the side the of river are little rocky beaches where people sunbathing and chilling off.

Midway through the trip, we came to a spot called the "High Point", which is a stretch of the river with tall rocks on either side. Local teens were jumping off the rocks into the river. Some jump-off points were 30 feet tall. We were taking a break at the High Point. Jose and Ceci were both going to jump off the tallest one. I wasn't. Did I mention that I don't swim? Although I was standing up there with them from the rocks. It looks scarier from up here. They both jumped and came back up with a huge smile on their faces. That's when I was talked into jumping from a lower rock, which was still 15 feet above the water. Jose and Ceci are now in the water waiting for me to join them. I was having second thoughts. I heard Jose say "don't think, just jump".

And I did just that.

I stepped over the edge and immediately the feeling of free fall kicked in, followed by "when is the water going to hit? damn this is high!", followed by water rushing into my nose and vision blurred by white foam. I wanted to breath, but wasn't sure if I was still submerged in water. All of the sudden, I could hear Ceci and Jose laughing and screaming, and realized that my head is indeed above the water (remember the life jacket?).

That's when it hit me. The water was cold.

I wish I had my camera with me. It was so fun. So we did it again. They from the tall rock and I from the short rock. I even fantasized about a fancy pose when I leap off the rock. But all I could manage to do was simply stepping off the rock. Then the same sequence of sensations cycled through, the free fall, the fear, the water impact, the blurred vision and finally the cheer from Jose and Ceci.

When Ceci said she wanted to come back here soon, I agreed. That was really the highlight of the trip. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. When we were not paddling, we could look up to see the houses on the side of the river. We could see ospray resting on shore. We played splash war against the kayak team.

It was an awesome trip. I'm proud of myself for jumping off a short rock.

Cannon Beach

Portland is close to various elements of nature. There are mountains to the east, deserts to the further east. Columbia river to the north. And the Ocean an hour and half to the west.

We've been here for almost six months. This is the first time we made it to the coast. Our destination was Cannon beach. In the city it was 80 degrees. Here on the beach it felt more like 60s with the wind. The water is freezing. This is not your typical beach where people sunbath. Although it's great for surfing.

haystack rocks

It's low-tide time of the day. You can find all kinds of good stuff that's left behind by the ocean water in the tide pools. The rocks were covered with barnacles and sea mussels. There were also big fat star fish, seaweeds and what looked like anemone.

The town of Cannon Beach is small and quaint. We ate lunch at Ecola Seafood, a family eatery, where you order food at the counter and bring food to the table yourself. There were four of us. So we got four fried fish and chip basket, cod, halibut, razor clam and oysters. They were very good, highly recommended.

A hike cut short...

A first Saturday that neither of us had any plans. Jose suggested hiking the Multnomah and Wahkeena falls by the Columbia Gorge.
We have done part of the hike last year before moving to Portland. I thought this could be a good opportunity for me to try out some camera tricks on shooting moving water. I always liked photos of water falls with long exposure that the water would look like white silk.
It's very sunny today, which isn't good for taking decent photos in my opinion. It's too much light and shadow contrast. A good day also means lots of people.

I took a few training shots at the beginning of the hike, and realized that I really needed a tripod for the flowy silk photos. But here are a couple that don't look too bad with just bare hands and breath-holding.

Then less than a quarter mile into the hike, I tripped on a pothole and twisted my left ankle, and subsequently on my way down I smashed my right knee on the pavement and dropped my camera. The camera is okay. I wish I could say the same about the left ankle and the right knee. With great effort and a bit more attention than I'd like from fellow hikers, we made it back to the parking lot and headed home...

Portland Japanese Garden

It looks gloomy today, like most days since we arrived in Portland. Instead of a hike in the forest, we opted for a visit to the Japanese garden. 

It’s only about less than 10min drive from downtown. The Japanese garden sits in one of the many hills dotting the west of downtown area. Tickets are less than $10 per/person, though annual membership is available for $75 for two people.

The entrance leading up to the gate of the garden is a paved path meandering the thick woods with tall spruces, maples and other trees I can’t name. Once inside the gate, be prepared to be taken on a journey of texture study and sensory overload.

The general philosophy of a Japanese garden design is to create more with little. Japanese gardens tend to be on a small piece of land. But with carefully crafted paths, divisions and vegetation, the visitor gets a different view every few steps. This garden is no exception. Everywhere you look there’s a lot going on. 

There’s also a great mix of various elements. On the ground, earth is generously covered with moss. Paths are paved with a few different textures, straight-cut slates juxtaposing irregular-shaped stones. Vegetation mixes with man-made structure to help frame a space. A body of water is always circled by carefully placed mossy rocks and trees. Wooden bridges are common. Most of them are built to make you spend more time on the water with its zigzagging form and attention to detail in construction.

We were taken away by all the textures in the garden, mostly in the man-made structures. Japanese landscape artists are masters of materials. They treat commonplace materials with great attention to detail. They also demonstrate clever use of other unique natural materials. You’d see a few simple low fences made of bamboo sticks tied together with jute ropes. Taller fences use more of a mix of bamboo and wooden slabs. 

The overall structure of a building is very simple and streamlined. But every surface you look would have some level of texture on it that makes it difficult for you to look away.

The texture theme also extends to the fascination of Zen garden, where a field of fine gravels is painstakingly raked to create a rippling sandscape. It’s not hard to imagine that level of zen-ness that’s required to create the perfect ripples. The garden sits on a mere 5-acre land, but the attention to detail per inch of land is greater than anything we’ve seen before.

Craftsmanship is another stunning feat in this garden. Pieces of wood are rarely joined by nails. If you look closer, you’d see intricate joints and above the board details that beg you to look longer.

Sometimes we would sit on a bench in a little tuck-away corner for a few minutes listening to the sound of a nearby stream, looking around at all the carefully crafted picture-perfect garden views, thinking that maybe, just maybe for a few minutes we could achieve some level of inner zen.