Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
I kept putting off planning a summer trip for the family, but in mid-late June, I spent a long time doing research and put together an itinerary for a Cascades/Montana trip.
To show you my dedication to doing radio for you guys, I did a 3+ hour show the morning of the day I was leaving (8/4), then grabbed just a little bit of sleep, and got myself to LAX in the Friday traffic to fly to Seattle.
Visited Mt. Rainier on 8/5. I had been there twice before as an adult -- one was a complete fail in the 2000s when it was covered by clouds, and the other in 2015 when it wasn't in clouds but it was near dark already. (That day the clouds were covering it until near sunset.)
This one didn't look very good either, as it was actually raining on that morning and early afternoon. However, it started to improve, so I drove up there, and we got a full view of the mountain. We also encountered a very brave marmot on one of the trails, who had no problem with us getting close to it and taking a video of it. Usually they run if you get anywhere near them.
Mt. Rainier is a very scenic area, and it's really cool to have the giant white mountain towering over you, even if you're used to mountain scenery like I am.
Unfortunately, on 8/6 I learned that Route 20 through the North Cascades National Park was closed due to the "Sourdough Fire", and we would not be able to go in as planned. Instead, we visited the "Big Four Ice Caves" just south of the park. These are glacial ice caves which are too dangerous to go into, but are very interesting to approach and touch from the outside. I'll post a pic of it later. It's about 2.2 miles round trip hike to get to them, so not hard. It's only at 2,000 feet (lower than Las Vegas!), so this is the lowest glacier in the continental US.
On 8/7-9 we spent time in a town called Stehekin in Washington. Very unique place. Did you know that there's an inland town in Washington with no roads in or out? You take a ferry across Lake Chelan -- one which does not carry vehicles -- and you are the isolated town of Stehekin, with a population of just 77. There are 2 mediocre restaurants in town for dinner, but there is a decent lunch sandwich place. We stayed in an AirBnb cabin, though I rented it directly from the owner, because fuck AirBnb. Surprisingly nice instead, and it was also spacious. Had two bedrooms, four beds, and a full family room and kitchen area. They also give you an old junker vehicle to drive around, including with the cabin. It was like a 1990 Subaru with 187k miles. But it got the job done. The cabin itself was very isolated, with nobody else around in any direction. There are roads within Stehekin, just nothing in or out.
We were worried that the Sourdough Fire would ruin the visit to Stehekin, as the place was directly south of the fire. Fortunately, just as we arrived, a small rainstorm showed up and cleaned the air, so we never had a problem with the smoke.
On the 9th, they had reopened Route 20 to North Cascades, but it as far less convenient for us, as now we had to drive out-and-back, as we were east of the park, and had to go further east to get to that night's hotel. We drove in just to find that the good parts of the park were still closed, even with the road open. Fail. They should have posted a warning about this. We did get to see the fire burn, so that was mildly interesting.
On the 10th we spend the day in the Idaho panhandle, after staying the night in Coeur d'Alene. This is in the greater Spokane area, and I considered stopping by a local poker room and saying I knew Jami Lafay, but I resisted the temptation.
The remainder of the trip was spent at Glacier National Park (Montana), mostly the east side of the park which I hadn't previously seen. The entire area east of the park is owned by the Blackfeet Indian tribe. On the 13th, we went to the "Many Glacier" area of the park, took a boat across a lake there, got off, walked 0.2 miles up and down a fairly steep hill, and then took another boat across the next lake. Then we hiked to a lake called Grinnell Lake, about 2 miles round trip, which was very scenic. The only pain in the ass is catching the boat on the way back, because there's a huge backup of people waiting to take those boats.
It's grizzly bear country over there, so I bought bear spray,. Didn't have to use it. Since you can't take bear spray on the plane, this $50 bottle was going to go in the garbage, which bothered the Jew in me. I put some effort into shipping it back home. You can't buy it in CA, so I wanted to have it for future road trips where I'd be going into bear country (and not flying).
I booked the only flight from Kalispell, MT (directly west of Glacier Park) which is nonstop to LA. Last time I was here, 10 years ago, the flight did not exist.
It's a small regional jet, but whatever. Thrilled to not have to get off in Denver and do the layover bullshit.
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