Mossyrock Park & Mt. Rainier, WA

May 5: We take our time this morning getting the motorhome packed up to go on this travel day. We linger and make breakfast, which is amazing every time on the Blackstone grill. We take the pups for one last walk in the park and soon we are on our way. Sean decides we need diesel and a short ride up I-84 in Oregon we stop at a station that Sean can use the discount card because the prices for diesel are super expensive, even though Sean mentions each day how oil prices are falling, but we aren’t seeing it at the pumps on this side of the country. Once full of fuel, we head through the spaghetti bowl of interstates and end up headed North finally and then cross over quite a long bridge, then you hear the Google Maps say “Welcome to Washington”, though there was no sign. We managed to capture a picture of Mt. Hood in Oregon from the bridge. Every once in a while you can spot Mt. St. Helens through the trees and hills to our right. What a beautiful sight. We stop at a rest area to walk the pups and eat some leftovers for lunch. Back on the road and we shortly encounter our turn for our next resting spot, Mossyrock Park. We knew it would be a pretty area because it’s close to a lake, but we had no idea that this park would look like a manicured golf course! Everything was intentionally designed for easy navigating and parking RVs, and it smelled like just cut grass. There were huge and lush lawns, a walking trail, boat launch, multiple playgrounds, etc. It was just awesome. We quickly found a spot and pulled in to get settled, and we had the best time exploring this park with the dogs. There was a swim beach that was deserted, so we took the pups for some water play time and of course Hershey had a blast! Skittles was not so enthused, but made the best of it. Hershey was having so much fun chasing after driftwood sticks that she didn’t even notice that she was shaking like a leaf, lol. We thought it best to continue exploring so Hershey could dry off before the night and warm up a bit. We pull out our chairs and fire pit, and read our books for a while. Soon, we were both starting to get hungry and decided it was time to fire up the grill for some steak. Bellies full, we retired inside for the evening.

Columbia River near Government Island between Oregon and Washington, view of Mt. Hood.

Gee Creek Rest Area

Mossyrock Park camping spot. 

Swim beach on Riffe Lake. 

May 6: Today we were headed to Mt. Rainier. I found a trail with a 320’ waterfall (Comet Falls) that I wanted to surprise Sean with, so I told him he couldn’t look at pictures of it before we go to the trail. Enjoying all the sights the road had to offer, which were plentiful, we made our way to the trailhead and hiked through some thick forest. What we weren’t prepared for was the snow! There were several areas that were packed in with multiple feet of snow on the trail. We tried our best to make our way on the packed areas of the snow but then we got to a section that looked quite scary with a steep drop-off and very thin, icy trail. We decide after 1.3 miles to abandon our quest and call it good. I was aching to venture further to see this waterfall, but it’s not worth falling off a cliff and getting hurt or causing an avalanche/ rock slide. We trudge sullenly back to the truck and continue the road to the “Hugh Jackman” Visitor Center (really named Henry M. Jackson). We are surprised to see just how much snow accumulation still remains at the end of the plowed road, taller than the truck for most of the area (7-10’ is what we guesstimate). We don’t see any picnic tables outside and assume they are buried under the snow, so we enjoy our picnic lunch in the truck watching multiple cross-country skiers head up a trail to the summit of Rainier. We explore the Visitors Center and pay an obligatory visit to the gift shop for a magnet and other whatnots, and wander around their galleries. We then took it upon ourselves to hike up the snow, as many of the tourists were doing to see how far we could make it without slipping or falling through. We got about 100 yards in and decided to FaceTime some family for a moment so they could enjoy the view with us. Once we had our fill of the snow, we got back to the truck and headed down the mountain road and stopped at Narada Falls since it was close to the road and seemed accessible by a short trail, or so we thought… This trail was also impacted by snow, but we were able to fight our way through the icy slopes to view a beautiful waterfall. We decided to stop at Longmire to visit the museum and ask about Comet Falls trail. While in the museum, Sean had a mishap with his sunglasses and they fell into multiple pieces on the floor, lol. Don’t worry, he fixed them and we both had a great laugh. We make our way to the Rangers to ask them about the trail and they remark that the trail is not an early summer trail due to the dangers of the snow accumulation creating icy and unstable areas. There was a lady behind us that remarks, “Oh, I hiked to the falls today!” Sean, the rangers, and I all looked at this lady (who was hobbling around with a cane) and were all impressed by this claim of hers. It was obvious that she either misunderstood which trail we were talking about, she made it up, or very unlikely, maybe she really did hike there (in which case, props to her!). Sean and I collect a couple of maps and venture home to our very excited pups. We have burritos this for dinner tonight and spend the rest of the evening enjoying our picturesque surroundings. 

Van Trump trailhead to Comet Falls.

This was our stopping point on the trail. We got about 1/3 way through this snow, then it got scary, so turned around. The picture was an afterthought.

Cross-country skiers on the way down from mountain. 

Narada Falls

Trail for Narada Falls. 

A very old tree that was cut and the rings were counted and marked with significant histories. 

Twin Falls to Portland Oregon

We woke up early because we had a 500 Mile drive between Twin Falls and Cascade Locks Oregon. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and the Elkhorn mountains near the Oregon/Idaho border had a substantial amount of snow on them. 

                              Starting to get excited as we see the Columbia River come into view. 

Playing Peek A boo with a Semi on the road. Scenery is very arid still.

We pulled into the campground at about 6:30 at night, tired from a long day of driving and ready to eat.

The Next day, we decided we wanted to see the most famous waterfall of the Columbia River Gorge area, and we reckoned that we brought our bikes, so we may as well use the local bike trail to go see them instead of driving in the truck. We ended up being totally wrecked at the end of the day, the bike ride was a total of 31 miles, up and down hills. The bike trail, and scenery were absolutely beautiful. The river gorge is very narrow, so sometimes the bike trail was above the interstate, sometimes below it, sometimes beside it.

Had to push the bikes up a staircase on the bike trail. A tire groove was helpfully cut out on the side of the staircase to make it easy to push the bikes.

View from the staircase of the Eastbound I-84 coming out of a tunnel.

View of the west bound I-84 from the bike trail high above 

Salmon Hatchery right off the bike trail that let you walk around on your own. These are baby CoHo salmon according to the sign.

Finally made it to the crown jewel waterfall of the Columbia River Gorge: Multnomah Falls. It was spectacular.

More random waterfalls off the bike trail. There were lots of these, but they all looked small after Multnomah Falls.

Another view on the way back high above the East and Westbound I-84, plus the very active train track below.

Made it back to town/ Cascade Locks. We had planned to make dinner, but at this point we could barely walk, and so this little hamburger stand on the corner with no name was our dinner. The food was excellent and the ice cream was top notch. We came back again for ice cream the next day.

The next morning, we could barely walk, so we wanted an easy day. The dogs also needed some physical activity after staying in the motorhome all day, so we decided to take them to Thunder Island, a park on an island right in Cascade Locks to play ball with the dogs, then read books for a few hours.

Playing with the Dogs on Thunder Island in the middle of the Columbia River. Beautiful Setting.

Our Book Reading place on Thunder Island, watching boats go by. 

After reading for a few hours, we decided we needed more ice cream from the hamburger stand with no name. The dogs were with us, so of course they got a cone to share.

We also walked down main street a bit to look at the Bridge of the Gods, which goes across the river from Oregon to Washington. It costs $3.00 to cross each way. We were amazed at the grating, and that you could see the cars from underneath. 

The next day, we decided to drive into Portland to attend a farmers market, as well as get some errands done. Portland is full of ........... very very interesting people, but the most interesting one by far was the man who had a huge full size cat that stayed on his hat and shoulders as he walked around the city. No pictures, we did not think about it. Heather was amazed at the local Target that had a basket escalator, because it was two stories.

After getting our errands done, we decided to come back out to the Gorge for more sightseeing. First we stopped at the Columbia River Vista House to take in the view.

Then we decided to take a hike to Wahkeena and Fairy falls. This hike was 1,000 ft straight up over a few miles, but had beautiful views of the falls and the Columbia Gorge below.

Our last and final day at Cascade Locks, we decided to go see Mt. St Helens, as Heather has always wanted to see it. We were shocked at how much snow the mountain still has on it, and wonder if all that snow will actually melt this summer. 

We drove down on some Forest Roads to try and get closer to the mountain and do some hikes through the lava, but the US forest service is really fond of installing gates across roads and trails and prohibiting people from really doing much of anything down there. The forest service must have millions spent on gates and fences, and we saw a contractor putting more up.  Then they get mad when people make their own trails. We were able to find a small hike that was open, which featured a crawl through a lava tube!

It was small and dark in there! Sean is way too Claustrophobic, and Heather started to feel it as well when she got down there, so backed out of it. We did see some kids with headlamps successfully complete the crawl.

After trying to see some more trails and viewpoints, and the Forest Service having nearly all of them closed, we came back towards Stevenson, Washington for a waterfall hike that Sean had seen on the map. Sean knew nothing about the hike, just it was a hike to a waterfall. We did not have much hope for it, but wanted to get the dogs out walking after everything being closed.

The trail, and the waterfall were absolutely amazing! This waterfall was one of Seans favorites he has ever seen! Watch the video to get a reference to how big it was!

After hiking back out of the trail, we learned that the waterfall is called the "Falls Creek Waterfall". It was late and we were ready to eat, so we headed towards home stopping at the local grocery store in Stevenson, Washington, before heading over the toll bridge back to Cascade Locks, Oregon and home.