I'm only here for the beaches.

Tuesday October 26th-Wednesday October 27th:

I arrived at work to find out that there was a lead in Ulysses, Pa, which is east of Bradford. Wednesday looked light so I determined it was a good time for an adventure. I packed my bags, drove to Ulysses, sold a $7800 window job, then decided to drive in a random direction.  I stopped in Bradford for some roast beef, medium rare. After refueling, the decision was made to drive out a random country road to see what I'd come across. After many random turns, I arrived in the town of Jamestown, Ny. Unfortunately, I did not think to take pictures of this day, for I did not know my camera was in the spaceship (blue minivan for those who don't know).  Sunset had already passed over an hour ago, so after a quick bite, my compass pointed me to Cleveland, Oh.  Shortly after arriving in Ohio, I started to fall asleep, so I made the decision to turn around and spend the night in Erie.  After some gambling (up $110), I retired to the room to get some much needed rest.

The next morning I toyed around the idea to continue my quest to Cleveland, Oh to confirm whether or not it rocks, but overall the desire to be on Presque Isle overcame me.  My mission:

To hike the entire Presque Isle peninsula on the beach side. It was a grueling walk but I saw a few interesting things on the way.

 Lonely guy comtemplating life.

 Lighthouse.

I don't know what the fuck this is.

I also saw some people doing the Hankey Pankey but that picture can only be seen on http://www.hankeypankey.com/ (not sure if this is an actual site).  After the long grueling journey, I decided to reward myself with a swim in the nice, cool, October waters of Lake Erie, as I  swam out to the rock pile things.

Afterwards I drove south to quaint little town of Pittsburgh to visit Penelope. Andy and Emily were there as well. After Andy selfishly drank 4 out of the 6 beers I brought, it was time to retire home.

The Journey to Washington, Part 4:

Thursday September 30th continued:

After arriving at my car and saying goodbye to my 2 new friends, I drove back making one stop to see...

Another waterfall.

After eating under the bridge again (the troll in me couldn't resist), riding the ferry, and driving the whole way around the peninsula, I arrived just in time to see the Hoh rainforest...

...find the cache with a sweet gift inside, and set up camp on the beach just in time to see the sun set over the pacific ocean right next to an island. This was the perfect evening. Oh and I opted to take a bear bin filled with ice and 3 local beers instead of food. Best decision I ever made.

Friday October 1st:
Woken up early by a huge storm blowing into the beach. Winds were powerful but the rain had not come yet, so I packed up my stuff and started booking it back the 3 mile hike to the car. Most of this trail is on a boardwalk that is made up of now very slimy wet wood from previous week of rain. I had not slipped the previous day so I was very confident I could walk briskly to avoid getting wet again, for I did not have fond memories of the last time I was caught in the rain. Part of the way through the hike, I hit a slippery spot, slid, spun, tried to recover, but my 40 lb pack gave me so much momentum that I flew off of the boardwalk, rolled down a very long, very steep hill, launched myself off an 8 foot cliff, and landed on a fallen tree. Here is a picture of the aftermath:

I have never felt so much pain in my life. After laying there motionless for I don't know how long, I reached for my spot to press the assistance button, but I left it at the car. My right shoulder was in immense pain, as were my ribs. I thought they were both broken especially since I couldn't move my arm and I could barely breathe. There was nobody at the beach and it was extremely early in the morning, so I had to get myself up, and hike around and up the hill, and back to the car while wearing my pack on my shoulder. I drove to the nearest hospital and after some xray's and examination, they found that my shoulder was dislocated and my ribs were severely bruised, but thankfully not broken. After setting my shoulder back into place, letting the anesthetic wear off, outfitting me with a sling, giving me explicit instructions to take it easy for a while, and giving me a prescription for pain pills (for which I still haven't filled), I was on my way out of there. My original plans were to head to Cape Flattery, the NW most point in the Lower 48, and supposedly the most dramatic coastal area in Washington. However I was exhauted and in terrible, terrible pain...so I stopped for some food first. Here are a few pictures of the coast.

After that hike I drove 3 hours to the capitol of Washington, Olympia. I stopped to vomit multiple times along the way, maybe that hike was a bad idea. I ordered a pizza, took a much needed shower, and then blacked out, not sleep, blacked out. I was in the middle of town when I came to at some art festival. I went back to my hotel, fuzzy in the head, had a conversation (if you can call it that) which led to me being told to "go to sleep". Another black out and I was in a bar filled with hipsters talking to a biker. Then I decided that I should either walk to a hospital or the hotel, I decided on the hotel since I  had no idea where the hospital was. After getting some sleep I woke up at around 10 am, still exhausted, in more pain than the previous day, and relieved my stomach some more. Not the most glamorous part of my trip. Today I was supposed to go to Seattle to see the sites and eat some good food, but the weather said clear skies in Mount Rainier, so of course I did the smart thing and drove back out to Paradise to see the views. It took me 4 hours to do a hike that should have taken an hour with the time for photos and taking in the view. Here are said photos:

And after that I drove straight to the airport stopping only for gas and dinner. The flights home were uneventful, except that my luggage decided that it wanted to see detroit instead of Pittsburgh. Everyone should go to the Pacific Northwest someday, it truly is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

The Journey to Washington, Part 3:

Monday September 27th through Thursday September 30th:
Woke up quite early in preparation for the long drive to the North Cascades. During the drive I came to a bay area that reminded me of the Coasts around the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska so I stopped and took in the view while reviewing some fond memories of the place.

Shortly after I drove onto a ferry and crossed the bay, making my next pitstop to cook lunch troll style under a bridge.

While preparing lunch (boiling water) I made a quick generalized itinerary which changed after arriving.

I arrived at the park, got my permits, packed my bag, drove to the trailhead, and set off for my first destination, 4.5 miles and 5800 ft of elevation gain to the top of this:



Overall the hike would take me 3 days and went from the northside of the North Cascades to the:

Now this is where the story becomes completely unbelievable. It sounds completely fictional and way to crazy to have happened but I assure you it did all happen and these are not exaggerations. I was hiking through a dense forest region and up ahead was a tundra area. Being excited to see the views, I quickened my pace and as I came speeding out of the forest, I came face to face with this:

First let me clarify, this is not my picture, I was scared shitless and never got my camera out. He was only about 15 yards away and was as surprised to see me as I was him. His reaction: a bluff charge. That's where a bear charges straight at you and stops short. Running in that position is a death wish so I pretty much had to stand still and hope it was a bluff charge and not a real one. He stopped about 5 feet in front of me, and then started pacing back and forth, at which time I backed up slowly into the woods. He did not follow. after waiting for my heart rate to slow down and the bear to leave, I  walked back into the tundra and continued on. That was Washington's first attempt to kill me, there are 3 more.

Incident number 2 occurred because that 30% chance of light snow turned into 100% chance of neverending heavy rainfall. I was back in the deep forest at this time, following a steep ridge with no chance of setting up a tent/shelter to get out of the rain. This went on for hours and hours. The temperature reading at the time was somewhere around 45 degrees. By the time I finally got to a suitable place to set up the tent, my rain gear had already become so saturated that the water went through all three layers and I was drenched. Unfortunately my raincover for my pack did the same and all of my spare clothes were also wet. There were only 3 things dry in my pack: my camera in it's waterproof case, my sleeping bag, and my sleeping pad. By this time I could barely move my hands, (sign of hypothermia) so I quickly set up my tent, got naked, used a wet towel to dry the excess water off my body and climbed into my sleeping bag naked as the day I was born. It was about 3-4 hours until feeling started to return to my body and I knew I would survive for sure. Things can't get any worse than this I thought...

Flashback to planning day: Let me preface this with the fact that this is one of the biggest rookie mistakes you can make, I knew this beforehand and still did it. As I  was reading the description of this hike, I  came to a point that read this exactly:
"The next stretch can hold snow as late as August."

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!!!

"One snow gully is especially perilous; slip here and it could be your demise. That's why an ice axe is needed even in August."

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!

Unfortunately I could not get a picture to justify what the book was talking about, so here's the rundown. It looks like just powdery snow, so no big deal. That's what I thought the first time I stepped on the non dangerous section. I immediately slipped off my feet in one of those classic falls where you are completely airborn. I fell 3-4 times on the section on the first picture. Now I was not able to get a close up picture of the dangerous section, but on the left side of the picture is a straight walled cliff, not getting around that. The right side is basically a steep slide of ice leading to a huge cliff that there's no coming back from. My walkway was about 2-3 ft wide and solid ice, so one slip meant going down that hill. I wanted to turn back, but I did not have enough food or time to make it back to where I started. There was no choice but to improvise. I unscrewed the metal handle part of my tripod to use as a makeshift ice axe (probably wouldn't work but it was all I had) and slowly made my way through. The lesson is people, never assume that since the guidebook said August and it was October that you'll be fine, always check up to date trail conditions. Do not decide that it will take too long to drive to the wilderness information center because that extra 20 minutes may save your life.

Now I'm making this seem like a terrible trip, but believe me I am glad I had this experience, and would do it all again. Besides, the views along the trail were magnificent. The North Cascades are amazing, there are endless valleys, waterfalls, and peaks in every direction. I have too many pictures to post them all but here are a few.

Slightly treacherous part of trail with tons of loose slippery rocks, easy to pull a Josh in Bryce incident.

Mount Baker in the background with my Mount Baker cairn in the Foreground.

Tree falls down, root grows into mini tree. Sat her for hours pondering this situation. It's fucking deep man.

"Mount Shuksan, you're melting my icy heart"

Fall colors reminding me it's going to be another cold night.

Mount Shuksan

I arrived at the Heather Meadows recreation to find 2 geocachers who I bummed a ride off to my car which was many miles away. If you're reading this somehow, thanks Greg and Sue! They also gave me a tip on a great Cache they just started with a special prize way back on the Olympic Peninsula. What the hell, I  wanted to see the rainforest and coast in sunlight anyways. Time to backtrack.

The Journey to Washington, Part 2:

Friday September 24th continued through Saturday September 25th:

So I had stopped in the town of Packwood, Wa on my way to meet Tym and Erin at Mt. St. Helens.

I knew there was pizza waiting for me, but I had just hiked 13 miles with no food and was too exhausted to continue otherwise. I stopped at a restaraunt which literally had 3 choices on their menu. Hamburger, Cheeseburger, and Bacon Cheeseburger. I wish I took a picture of the menu. About 2 hours into the drive as the sun was going down, I happened across a nice waterfall and I tested the water. It was cold.

I arrived well after dark, found Tym and Erin, or rather they found me, and had some nice conversation while Tym offered me food and delicious beer about 3500 times. In the morning we made a delicious yet simple meal of ramen with eggs. After playing a fun game of find the keys to Tym's truck (Erin was the winner, and consequently the loser of the game as well), we headed to the Ape Caves of Mt. St. Helens, which is basically a lava tube that you can hike/climb through, the most fun part of which was an 8 foot wall you have to shimmy your way up. Who knew it would be hard to take photos inside a pitch black lava tube? Here are the only 2 ok pictures, second one taken by Tym.

Afterwards we ate at a local bar with very strict TV rules and then parted ways. I headed back up to Mount Rainier to hopefully do another hike.

Sunday September 26th:

Drove to Paradise in Mount Rainier to basically go into the visitor center.

The views of the mountain are supposed to be gorgeous here but it was very overcast and rainy so I decided to press on to the Olympic Peninsula in hopes of better weather. On my way out of the park I saw...

Waterfalls, and...

More Waterfalls.

After a very long drive, I arrived at the Olympic coastline which was filled with:

Driftwood...

Seastacks...

and Murrica!

After testing the water, cold once again, I made my way up to the town of Forks, Wa, which as all of you 13 year old girls know, is the hometown setting of the Twilight series. It's a nice little town, except now everything is endorsed by Twilight, even houses that have firewood for sale now sell it as "Twilight Firewood" or "Edward's wood". There is a fierce battle between which is better, Edward's wood or Jacob's wood. Here's a picture of my favorite beach in the area, Ruby Beach.

There were no open campsites available for miles so I had to stay in the Forks "Twilight" Motel. I found out through the interweb that the rain would not clear up until the end of the week, whereas except for one possible snowstorm, North Cascades would be sunny all week so I gave up on Olympic and made the decision to head up there in the morning.