My Adventure Story
Pacific Northwest adventure for Minnesota Boy Scouts of Troop 479.
Climbed Mount St. Helens, explored Oregon coast, rafted the Deschutes River, skied Mt. Hood, and visited the Space Needle in Seattle.
We flew into Seattle, grabbed 4 mini-vans, and headed south. We stopped at Costco and Safeway in Lacey for two days of food. Then, we continued on to Cougar, WA with a stop for dinner along the way.
We got our permits to climb St. Helens at the Lone Fir resort in Cougar and headed to the trailhead at 7am. We hiked through 2 miles of forest before the climbing began at timberline around 4800 feet. From there on, it was steeper with rock and snow.
Nearer the summit, we got above the clouds and it was a great sunny day. Our two climbing groups of 10 and 12 all made the summit. We then glissaded down nearly to timberline. Then, a long hike out to the trailhead and a spaghetti dinner back at camp.
On Friday, we had drizzly rain but we spent the morning hiking through Ape Cave on St. Helens. After lunch, we drove to the Oregon coast.
Ft. Stevens was full so we stayed at the KOA across the road - swimming pool, hot showers, all-you-can-eat pancakes so no one complained. We restocked food at Costco in Hammond.
Saturday had us touring Fort Clatsop, Cape Disappointment for lunch, and Ft. Stevens in the afternoon. The scouts hiked from Battery Russell to the Peter Iredale wreckage while I picked up salmon and dungeness crab for dinner.
We met a great fellow named Doug that works at KOA and digs razorback clams. He took us out early Sunday morning and nearly everyone got at least a clam or two. It was a typical drizzly Oregon coast morning.
We headed through Portland up the Columbia Gorge, stopping for food at Costco in Portland. We stayed at Wyeth campground - just $20! - where we cleaned and fried our clams for dinner.
Monday morning, we took a quick tour of Bonneville dam and fish hatchery where we saw Herman the Sturgeon and lots of other salmon and trout. Then, out of the gorge and up to the high desert town of Maupin on the Deschutes River. We rafted the Deschutes in 4 boats using High Desert River Outfitters - they were real good folks and we had a blast. A huge change from the green, cool morning to the hot, arid afternoon on the east side of the mountains.
We stopped at Bear Springs campground on highway 26 - had the entire campground to ourselves and it was beautiful.
Tuesday morning, we woke up to 36 degrees and ready to ski Mt. Hood. We got there at 7am and overloaded the one dude running the rental shop since his buddy skipped work that day. Everyone got out skiing by 8:30 and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! Nothing like snow skiing at 8000 feet in June in a t-shirt.
After the slopes closed at 1:30pm, we drove to Seattle so the scouts could take the elevator up the Space Needle. Then, to the KOA campground in Kent so we'd have an easy return of vans and access to SeaTac airport.
Since we had stayed under budget for food, we splurged on Papa John's pizza delivered to the campground for supper.
And that's all there is.
