After the excitement of the big city it was back to natural beauty for the Travelling Bradburys this week.  We started in Mount Rainier, named after a Royal Navy Admiral, which is a member of the Cascades range of mountains and an active volcano.

Our first trip into the park wasn’t particularly successful as we tried to climb above the treeline to gain a view of the mountain, easier said than done when the trees are enormous and the region hosts stands of trees over 1,000 years old that seem to reach to the sky.  We walked to the top of a tree covered ridge to survey yet more trees and no sign of the mountain that we’d had no problem seeing from Seattle.

As it was July 4^th we wanted to experience more than simply the fireworks set off by rowdy youths the night before, unfortunately after asking the campsite we set off to the local high school to discover no fireworks whatsoever.  Our Independence Day turned out to be a damp squid!  

The local supermarket had got into the spirit and had a sign up wishing the United States a happy 241^st birthday, which we felt was appropriate.

The next day was more successful and we walked up a steep trail to view Comet Falls, another majestic and awe inspiring natural falls.  We can’t get enough of waterfalls it seems, although Alex seems less keen on my description of Doubtful Sound and its cousins in New Zealand that experience rain 300 days a year but have stunning waterfalls because of it.

OK, enough about the land of sheep and Anchor butter, after the falls we drove to the main visitor centre in Mt Rainier which rests at the bottom of the mountain.  We were assured the Skyline trail was open and set off confidently, hmmm … still covered in snow and while it had a number of people struggling up it we chose to simply find a spot for lunch and look at the majesty of Rainier and its numerous glaciers while eating crisps and energy bars.  On the way back down Alex took a comedy fall in the snow, not captured for posterity I’m afraid, we both got wet but were pleased to have seen the mountain close up.  On our way out of the park we stopped to view the Grove of the Patriarchs, a stand of ancient forest more than 1,000 years old protected in the park from the numerous logging operations outside.

Thursday, we drove to the second volcano named after a British ambassador this time, Mt St Helens.  Alex was really excited as she remembers the original John Craven’s Newsround reporting of its explosion in 1980.  The Oregon state visitor centre had a film of the original newscasts describing the series of events leading to the major eruption on the 18^th May, 1980, starting with a number of earthquakes, the evacuation of people from the surrounding areas, the ‘growth’ of a bulge on the north face of the mountain and the final eruption.  It included poignant footage of Harry Truman, who had lived on Spirit Lake under the shadow of the mountain for over 50 years, who refused to leave his home and whose remains have never been found.

The Park Service visitor centre had more geological information and the last recording of a US geologist, David Johnston, who radioed his colleagues at the moment of the eruption and who also was killed by the eruption.  The mountain itself was completely altered by the eruption with one whole side sliding into the local area, sweeping all before it followed by a lahar, a mixture of snow meltwater, debris from the eruption and thousands of the trees knocked down by the blast.  It is a really awe inspiring sight to see the mountain close up, still with large barren areas but also the way vegetation is making a come back already.

What is also humbling is the power nature still has to overwhelm human development and that both Rainier and St Helens are both active and part of a chain of volcanoes that could erupt.  Rainier in particular give volcanologists worries because of the glaciers on its flanks that could melt and send literally waves of destruction down into Seattle itself.

After Mt St Helens we drove across the Columbia river into Oregon and spent the night in Astoria, a town built onto a hill overlooking the river and a series of enormous lumber yards for all the timber harvested from the forests in the region (there are a lot of them, all getting smaller I suspect from the amount of timber in these yards!).

From Astoria we drove down along the Oregon coast past cliffs, beaches stretching for miles and rocky outcrops in the sea to Tillamook Bay.  Tillamook is famous for its cheese, I believe they produce all three American varieties, i.e. White, Yellow and Orange, it is though a very beautiful part of the coast with an area called the Three Capes that we drove along, stopping for lunch on our travel further south to Salem, Oregon’s capital and on the edge of the Willamette Valley the major wine region of Oregon.

Sunday found us in cycling distance of a vineyard serving brunch, the journey there was going to be about 30 minutes, the journey back wasn’t so certain.  Eola wines tasting room was a large shed which did have a lovely garden where we sampled the majority of their output, predominantly Pinot Noir but with a very nice Cuvee II, at $60 a bit steep for our quaffing requirements.

M