It’s that time again. Soon enough you’ll be flying somewhere over the rainbow way up high, but where, oh where will you land? Every year at this time our travel advisor Rocky Mountainhigh is besieged with requests for advice from would-be nomads inexperienced in the ways of Idaho or Montana or the Ape Caves of Mt. St. Helens, and he is back with us again to open his giant atlas and help you with your plans. If you benefit from his advice, Rocky would appreciate a couple of photos, a souvenir pin and a $40 gift certificate from L. L. Bean. Without further ado, we’ll hand you over to Mr. M.
“Our first caller is Cathy DeWitt from Gainesville, Florida who wants to know the best places to go in Montana. That’s a cinch. Glacier National Park in northwest Montana and the area surrounding it win by the length of the stretch at Belmont Park. Many people, including Billy the K., think Glacier is the most beautiful of the national parks with its drop-dead gorgeous drive from one side of the park to the other on the undulating Going To The Sun Road. If you’re timid driving on narrow, curving roads with steep dropoffs and few barriers like some people we know, book one of the park’s famous red buses or use the free tho often crowded shuttle.
One required stop is at Logan Pass on the Continental Divide (altitude 6000+ feet) where you’ll share the parking lot with bighorn sheep and the snowy walk along the Hidden Lake Trail with curious mountain goats. Reserve a room for at least one night at the historic Many Glacier Hotel---pictured above---just across Swiftcurrent Lake from the scenic and unpredictable (snow in July?) Grinnell Glacier Trail on the eastern side of the park.
You’ll probably fly into Kalispell’s nifty airport and find a reasonable place in town. If you have time, you might want to circle vast Flathead Lake and stop in at charming Big Fork. The little theater there is special and there’s a wonderful art fair on the city’s main street on the first weekend of August. Another nearby town worth visiting is ritzy Whitefish; good restaurants, interesting shops and even a tiny beach. If you’re driving up from the south, stop in at Missoula, one of the last bastions of certified, card-carrying hippies. Make sure you pick up a tie-dyed fishing rod.
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| Stanley, Idaho...a river (the Upper Salmon) runs through it. |
Idaho
“Why the hell should I go to Idaho?” asks Gulf of Mexico boating enthusiast Carolyn Holmes. “It’s freezing, there’s nothing there and they have a freaking militia.” A common misperception, Carolyn, soon corrected. Try landing in Spokane and entering in the northwest corner near Coeur d’Alene, one of the prettiest little towns you’ll ever see. No matter how smitten you are, don’t even think of buying a house there, the place just became the city with the highest average price for a home in the United States. Head straight south over a beautiful, open, uncrowded landscape to the Snake River at Hell’s Canyon, where Evel Knievel went down in flames. Put your boat in the water and let the rapids throw you around for awhile, then get back in your car and head for Stanley.
Stanley, Idaho is picture-postcard pretty, a gentle painting by Claude Monet, ringed by snow-capped mountains, a lovely river winding gently through the town. Take a dip in a natural hot spring, hike around Stanley Lake or up into your choice of the four mountain ranges of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Wise men say anticipation always exceeds actuality but those boys haven’t been to Stanley
After you’re finished gushing, head south to Ketchum/Sun Valley. Michael Jagger Hatcherson of Subterranean Circus legend lives there and he’s waiting desperately to see you and talk some Gainesville. With just the slightest bit of warning, Jagger will put you up, make you breakfast and get you a date with a local bartender. Be prepared to discuss The Rolling Stones.
Now it’s on to Craters of the Moon National Monument, one of Siobhan’s favorite places on Earth. Basically, Craters is 618 square miles of lava, but interesting lava to be sure with its 25 volcanic cones. Others are not as interested as Siobhan. Washington Irving used the diaries of western explorer B.L.E. Bonneville to report “This unnamed lava field is a place where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awful waste, where no grass grows nor water runs and where nothing is to be seen but lava.” So who would you rather go to Craters with, Irving or Siobhan?
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| A bolt from the blue on Hurricane Ridge, Olympic N.P. |
“Why Washington?”---(wonders curious reader Mike Cahill of lovely Buena Vista)
Start in Seattle. Seattle is fun, especially its two most famous tourist attractions, Pike Place Market and Marty Jourard. Go to the market on a weekend when the usual mob of fish mongers, flower peddlers and clowns is joined by an array of artistes/salesmen of every description at little tables alongside the market proper. A strange highlight of this mad, mad world is a section where the employees toss large fish around, to the delight of action-starved onlookers and a large feline colony. Marty will meet you there and take you to every bar in town which features live music involving saxophones. There are way more than you think.
You’ll be glad to discover that the people who attend to these things in Seattle had the good sense to put all the tourist attractions in one place, clustered around the arresting Space Needle. You can visit the Needle, Chihuly Garden & Glass, the International Fountain, Pacific Science Center, Olympic Sculpture Park and the Museum of Pop Culture without driving a block, not that all this is a great idea. Maybe you’d rather cruise around the harbor with a salty margarita attached to your hand or ride the giant Ferris wheel, which is guaranteed never to strand you at top unless your name is Alice Killeen Richards.
Onward to Port Angeles and Olympic National Park, where you can hike up to Hurricane Ridge and throw snowballs at your wife while a deer or two frolic nearby. Onward further to the venerable Hoh Rain Forest, which supposedly gets precipitation every day of the year but held its water for a couple of hours while we visited. And then, finally, you must go down to the sea again at chilly Rialto Beach, driftwood capital of the western world. All this and we haven’t even mentioned Mount St. Helens and its famous Ape Caves. Say what?
Take Me For A Walk In Your Cave Cave
We’ll bring some bananas and a gift box of lichees
To let the apes know we’re friends of the species.”
You remember Mt. St. Helens. Big eruption there in 1980, ashes everywhere….57 dead, 200 homes erased along with 47 bridges, 15 miles of railway, 185 miles of highway and a partridge in a prune tree. The mountain’s summit was reduced from 9677 feet to 8363, leaving a one-mile wide horseshoe-shaped crater. Mt. St. Helens experienced continuous volcanic activity until 2008.
It’s definitely worth a looksee from the spiffy newish observation deck, which features great photos, films and stories of the big event. As an added feature, next morning you can venture into the Ape Caves on the other side of the mountain. The caves are lava tubes about two miles in length, which makes them the longest lave tubes in the continental U.S. It is very, very dark in the Ape Caves, so it’s advisable to wear a helmet with a light, if you can find one. A really great flashlight will do in a pinch. Hikers are advised to wear tough shoes that can handle the rocky uneven surface; also to wear gloves in case they happen to touch (and they will) the damp, oozing wall. And no one is allowed to say, “Oooh, it’s icky!” Quarters are tight in the Ape Caves, so no backpacks.
Siobhan and I got there at 8 am, well before the park rangers arrived, so there was no opportunity for questions about which of the two tunnels best suited our caving needs. We opted for the one with an opening at the end, which led to a pleasant little hike in the hills, then descended a ladder of several steps into the pitch-black cave, happy for our dueling flashlights. The ceiling was high enough but the rocky stumble-inducing floor was a chore. After awhile, the ceiling began to slowly descend on us, but we moseyed on, certain it was merely a temporary inconvenience. Eventually, we were crawling, with barely enough room to move forward. Siobhan, being smaller, went ahead on hands and knees but soon came upon a small wall. “I think once I get over it, I can stand up again,” she announced. She climbed over the wall, stood up, waved her flashlight around and reported “”There’s no way out. The cave just ends.” Despite our diligence, we somehow ended up in the cave with no exit. We put bodies in reverse and slowly eased out of the cavern, meeting a gaggle of merry optimists on their way in. How was it, they wanted to know. “Not bad,” we reported. “We just missed Batman by a few minutes but Robin had the French Press going. Don’t give up, the coffee’s great.”
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| Multnomah Falls at the Columbia River Gorge |
Oregon
Head east, young man, straight out of Portland into the Columbia River Gorge and pull up promptly at Multnomah Falls, the most visited national recreation site in the Pacific Northwest. It’s an eyeful, the tallest waterfall in the state at 620 feet with a viewing bridge halfway up. A switchback trail ascends to a talus slope 100 feet above the falls and descends to an observation deck that overlooks the falls’ edge. Multnomah is visited by over two million citizens each year according to people who know about these things.
Buzzkill: Like many other national rec sites, Multnomah requires a Timed Use Permit daily from 9 am to 6 pm from May 24 through September 2, obtainable via the internet. If you’d rather not, just get up early.
Okay, now you’ve got your choice; cruise that endless highway for six mindfrying hours down to Crater Lake in the middle of nowhere or hustle over to the coast to visit everybody’s favorite hostess Deb Peterson just outside Yachats. Oregon has a glorious coastline famous for its dramatic scenery featuring sandy dunes, lush forests, tidepools and headwater streams. When you get to Deb’s place, she’ll insist you sit down for dinner, have some schnapps and tell her all the latest gossip about the Florida Gator football team. Ms. Peterson haunted the Subterranean Circus in the first year of its existence and is secretly in love with Danny Levine, but don’t tell a soul.
If you take the Crater Lake option, bring a tent, there’s just one modest hotel on the property and it’s always full. There’s nothing much nearby, either. And while you’re camping, be aware that Crater Lake has a dark history of accidental deaths, suicides and even murders. In some cases, bodies have been lost in the dense woods surrounding the lake and only discovered as skeletons years later. The Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin tribes, indigenous to the area, regard the lake as a site of power and danger. According to tribal lore, Crater serves as a gateway between Earth and the underworld, with supernatural beings residing within its depths. It is believed that gazing too long into the deep blue waters can mesmerize a person, totally captivate them and ultimately lead to their demise, as presumably happened with Gainesville’s own George Swinford.
In Klamath legend, two spirits named Llao and Skell engaged in a gruesome battle at Crater Lake. Llao unkindly ripped Skell’s heart from his chest, while Skell retaliated by dismembering Llao and casting his body parts into the lake. Monstrous creatures devoured everything but Llao’s head, which remains in the lake to this day. When disturbed, Llao’s spirit is said to conjure up storms and even manifest as a colossal crayfish that nastily abducts people from the crater’s rim.
Holy shit! Those schnapps are looking better all the time.
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| Ketchum, Idaho if you can. |
That’s all, folks….
