The night was chilly. It was the only night we actually had a normal RV power station available, so we made use of the adapter we’d brought and had an electric space heater going all night. It turned out to be very welcome, as the temperature got down to between 40 and 45 deg F.

We awoke early (we had been, the whole trip, as we were still operating mostly on East Coast time). Smoke filled the air. Sometime overnight the wind had shifted back to the west and the smoke from the Wildcat Fire had found us. It would be with us for much of the morning’s journey.

We left the campground before anyone else was stirring, headed north on Rt. 410 in a smoky haze. Today was the most free-form on our entire trip. We knew that we’d be relocating, heading generally from Rainier to the North Cascades, but the details had always been fuzzy. We expected we’d need to take advantage of showers (we did – two days in a row, in fact!) and probably a food resupply, but other stops along the way were going to be fluid.

Our route DID, potentially, take us back through Seattle, so ultimately we decided we’d do some flexible exploring to some of the waterfalls, and maybe find a hike, back west toward Rainier and then north through Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, but with a goal to get downtown to explore Pike Place Market (we’re tourists after all), around lunchtime.

Smoke and forest fires were going to be a limiting factor, however.

As we drove north and west through the forest, we passed access points where fire crews were staging their response to the nearby (far enough, but relatively speaking, nearby) blaze. Signs pointed to closed campground areas, indicating that they were now command posts for incoming volunteer crews. There was a ridge to our west, blocking most of the smoke, but occasionally we’d pass a gap in the ridge where smoke poured through and blanketed the road. Capped in height by an early morning temperature inversion, the smoke flowed like water and dammed up against the high ground, and then poured through where it could.

Climbing up toward Chinook Pass, we rose above the inversion layer. Suddenly in clear air, we could see the layers of smoke filling the valley below, and we could also see active plumes of smoke adding to it. In the month since, this fire has done nothing but spread. Hopefully winter weather will suppress it soon.

The view from Chinook Pass was impressive, though the overlook contained a warning notice outlining the range of the fire, the response activities underway to contain it, and various safety precautions. The Pacific Crest Trail crosses through Chinook Pass, and at one point we had planned on hiking a loop around Naches Peak here, but the proximity to the fire had closed much of the route. Instead, we continued through the Pass, knowing that as soon as we crested the ridge we’d be looking once again at Rainier, this time from the east.

Not only did we get another spectacular view of the mountain, but the smoke was gone too, hemmed in by the atmosphere and the ridge we’d just crossed. We descended to a small alpine lake and pulled over to take some photos of the mountain and the lake together. As we stood on the roadside, I couldn’t help but notice a trail on the lakeshore, and if my angles were correct… I told my wife we might have a reflection opportunity after all, and we continued down hill and around the lake to a trailhead that labeled this as Tipsoo Lake.

The reduction in elevation looked, at first, like it would ruin my plan to catch a reflection. Here, the trees seemed closer, and tall, and it appeared as if they would block the mountain. But, we felt like a short walk was worth it anyway. The lake was beautiful in its own right. And so, walking around the lake, we found fresh elk tracks, we found huckleberries, and actually DID find the reflection we were looking for. The dead-calm lake was a perfect mirror, and from just the right angle, Mt. Rainier cast a stunning reflection. Plus, we got a good excuse to get the blood pumping. Tipsoo Lake was a short (0.6 miles) but welcome morning walk.

Continuing downhill, it wasn’t long before we re-intersected Rt 123, almost completing the loop we’d started as we’d exited Stevens Canyon yesterday, but this time we turned north, following the White River down off Rainier.

After a while, we approached a viewpoint for Skookum Falls, and pulled over to see what we could see. Skookum normally pours off a rocky cliff from the ridge across the river from the road here, but since Skookum Creek is fed by rainwater and not glacial melt, it was dry. It was clear where water WOULD be, and unless our eyes betrayed us it appeared that there was a little bit of ice still clinging to the cliff face, but the cascade was gone, for the moment. The White River was pretty though. True to its name it was full of glacial silt, giving it the opacity and color of dirty milk.

We kept going north, through the forest, and the town of Enumclaw, and then passing east of Seattle and Tacoma to reach Snoqualmie. There’s another impressive waterfall here – one that initially I though would ultimately make me angry. Snoqualmie Falls pours off the edge of a natural gorge, but in a place where a hydropower project has been installed. I was worried that the “falls” would basically be the result of an artificial dam, but instead, engineers had taken advantage of the natural height difference here. There IS a small dam, just upstream, built to accumulate and slow the water of the Snoqualmie River and feed it to intakes that plunge behind the cliff face through turbines before emptying downstream of the falls. If anything, the dam reduces the flow that would normally pass through the gorge.

So despite my fears, Snoqualmie Falls was fairly impressive, and worth the short walk past the Salish Lodge, now built on the precipice of the gorge.

From here, we turned west toward Seattle, with a plan to go the Pike Place Market and wander a bit. Parking was a concern for me. I knew Bones wouldn’t fit in any garages, and was big enough that parking anywhere would likely be tight, but we found an outdoor lot about 3 blocks away, got a spot, and walked downtown, where we did the normal things.

I didn’t take a lot of photos here – I’m an outdoors guy after all, and I also hesitate to be in a place where I’m capturing otherwise innocent folks in my camera frame – but we did have a nice afternoon. We found a nice fish and chips place for lunch (Jack’s Fish Spot), we watched the folks at Pike Place Fish Market throw tuna across the shop, we grabbed some tasty beverages at Rachel’s Ginger Beer, we passed (accidentally) through the Gum Wall Alley (I don’t really get it…). We browsed beautiful flowers, and produce, and crafts, and… well there’s a lot here. Good people watching, and interesting flavors, sights, sounds and smells.

As we thought about it, we realized we did have a mission to be fulfilled here. We had planned well and used our resources very carefully, but we had one more dinner to manage in a campground tonight. We had feta cheese and spinach, and wanted to find a way to use it. Conveniently, one of the shops we came across was a purveyor of artisan flavored pasta, where we found a perfect two-person quantity of artichoke and lemon fettucine. Sold!

After a while, the bustle of the city (and just so many people) wore thin. We’d spent about 3 hours in town, and poorly planned a departure that coincided with Seattle’s rush hour. We retrieved Bones and joined everybody else in town on Interstate 5, headed north, slowly, toward Arlington.

Our final campground was a strange one – we were aiming for something that would get us toward, and ready to enter North Cascades tomorrow morning, but again, most were already closed for the season. The few commercial campgrounds I found ahead of time looked TOO commercial, built to support rows of closely-packed RVs in what amounted to a parking lot. These places always strike me as being built for folks who never want to leave their vehicles, and manage to offer low ambiance and high prices at the same time. I prefer more woodsy, at least natural, places where the outside is expected to be more appealing than hanging out inside an RV, and I just couldn’t find what I wanted… Until I came across the network of campsites managed by Snohomish County. These are “boondock” sites – no power hookups, no water hookups, but access to potable water and a bathhouse. Plenty for what we needed.

We wound up staying at River Meadows Park just east of Arlington. It was a county park with some trails through the woods, some sports fields, some rentable yurts, and a few tent sites along the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River. When we arrived, we literally couldn’t get to our site because it was blocked by a row of school buses. There was a middle-school cross-country meet going on, and we had to wait – not long – until that wrapped up. We killed time with a short walk and efforts to access the river (it was disappointingly challenging to get down the riverbank).

After the buses left, other cars quickly followed, and soon we were alone except for one family that was camping in large tents across the access road from us. Where we were river-adjacent, they were on the edge of a meadow. And for some reason they cranked up generators and got three of them going, loudly. Fortunately that didn’t last long!

We cooked up our Seattle-bought pasta with some olive oil and the remainder of our feta and spinach. Dinner accomplished, and supplies dwindling according to plan! We chatted for a while in the dying light and went to bed early, listening to the river flowing nearby. This was our last night in Bones. Tomorrow, we’d spend the day exploring the Cascades, but tomorrow night we had a hotel room near SEATAC airport.

Hard to believe that our trip was almost over!

Get Out There