Northwest

This July 4th weekend turned out to be a really memorable weekend, as I finally fulfilled my long standing desire to visit the Northwest part of the country. The trip began with a very comfortable flight offering stunning aerial views of the entire west coast. The sight seeing began with the Los Angeles coastline and slowly moved inland to the lake and snow filled Sierra Nevadas. The sights of beautiful peaks like Mt. Hood, the steam pouring out of St. Helens and deepest lake in US, crater lake from 20,000 ft above the ground were breathtaking. But as it turned out, this was only a sample of what lay ahead.

Seattle turned out to be greener and prettier than I imagined. The city is filled with lotsa huge lakes and islands, and the Puget Sound Bay runs deep into the city. With steep slopes and tram cars, the downtown resemble San Francisco. However, I was disappointed with the Latte town, as I couldn't find enough coffee stores while ambling around the town. Unlike the bay area, the city was devoid of bridges conveying traffic over the bay. Instead they had a tedious system of ferrying all the cars across the bay on a cruiseline.

Olympic National Park is easily one of the best National parks I have seen to date. The eastern end of the park boasts of 9000+ ft mountain range which boasts of glacial formations even in peak summer. Hurricane ridge was a sight to behold even by standards of those who are not big nature freaks. Heading west, the park exhibits more of an alpine terrain with numerous rivers originating from these mountains, and also large lakes. A peculiar situation develops when the mountains stop all the rain from the pacific and give rise to heavy localised rainfall. Under these conditions the park has vast areas of rain forest which are really dense and give one an Amazon feel. Finally the coastal wilderness displays a different ecosystem, with the beaches flaunting black sand and a spectacular collection of colored rocks. Weather close to the coast is very fickle and can change from bright sunshine to overcast and biting cold.

The two great days spent in the park was closely matched by a great rafting expedition on the skykomish river through the scenic Steven's Pass. The pass boasts of 6000+ ft mountains known for their very steep faces and in most cases resemble a wall. Inspite of the organisers best effort to psyche us about the river, the level 2, 3 grades didn't bother us at all. Infact the only excitement arrived in the form of a friend drifting helplessly under the current. But the excitement was cut short by one of the assisstants who rescued him from steeper grades.

However no trip can end without Murphy teaching us his law. The flight back home was delayed by more than 2 1/2 hrs, which meant that I reached home well past midnight, only to get up next day before dawn and leave for work. Here are some random pics from the trip,

Washington - The beautiful state