Off The Coast of Ballard: VACATION PART 1

Sometimes unplanned is better than planned. Good thing we live in Washington state where trip planning boils down to throwing darts. Go where it lands.

For months we've been planning this vacation. On the boat. Clayquot sound vs the Gulf Islands. Off the boat. Camping. Backpacking. The ideas happily churned away. All sounded good. As the week approach we landed on camping up near high way 20, the mountain loop highway and doing some hikes we hadn't ever done, then going right to the boat and take off for the Gulf Islands.

Finally, with 3 days left before the start of the vacation, we had a firm plan.

Then smoke from BC wild fires spread across the northern part of the state, reducing the air quality from near pristine to worse than Beijing. So when the appointed hour arrived, we headed the car south towards Mt Adams. With no real plan in mind, we packed the car for car camping with a huge tent but had all our backpacking stuff as well. Who knew where we'd go? We didn't!!

When it came to the civilized treatments, Mt Rainier got it all. Paved roads. Grand lodges. The red carpet treatment. Mt Adams got none of that. Just outside of Packwood, cell service stops and gravel roads begin. For miles. And miles. Rutted, dusty roads pitted with potholes or teeth chattering washboard ripples. 25 miles an hour was speeding. 10 to 15 was more prudent.

We were headed for Walput Lake Campground after a later than planned departure. We finally found it. Organized campsites on a lake. High density camping with RV's, tents, trailers and kids running around. Not that there's anything wrong with that. All the campsites were reserved. We found out later they'd been full for weeks. It was just as well. That style of camping just wasn't what we were looking for.

Fortunately on the way in, about 2 miles from the lake, Leigh had spied a possible site next to a river. We backtracked and set up the cavernous tent in splendid solitude.

Camp is established with no one around

The next morning we decided to backpack up to 'High Camp' on Mount Adams via the Killen Creek trail. I had been there years ago and remembered it as a nice backpacking trail. Yet more driving on gravel roads with inexplicable small sections of nice paved roads.

The trail starts out with some elevation gain and then meanders through wild flower meadows. Lupin, Indian paintbrush, Yarrow, Phlox, Heather and Astor provide a Wizard of Oz like experience walking through fragrant meadows. Replace the flying monkeys with thousands of mosquitos and flies and that's about it. Beautiful, but bring a bug hat (we did!).