I went on a multi sport high adventure trip to southeast Alaska with my son in July 2018. We really experienced Alaska. No cruise ships or easy tourist excursions for us. We did it native style…with all the cold the wet the physical and the bruises that entailed.
After staving off hypothermia the previous night, we were on our way the third day with wet socks and jackets flapping from our packs. Again the Northern Loop presented us with a challenge…we now had to descend 3000 feet in 2.8 miles…my poor knees. We forged on down endless switchbacks. It was truly beautiful forest, although I had to walk slowly (and often sideways).
While visiting the Pacific Coast, I found the Pacific Northwest so beautiful that I decided to go back and do some backpacking. So early September a year later my 15 year old son and I flew to Seattle to hike the Northern Loop Trail in Mt. Rainier National Park. The Northern Loop covers nearly 40 miles in the northern and most remote section of the park and is strenuous with an gain of ~9000 feet.
It is a steeply up, steeply down trail so I spent the summer exercising and lightening my backpacking gear to prepare for the trip. I also frequented the weather report leading up to the trip. The last report predicted cool temps with some chance of rain the first two days of the hike and sunny and warmer the last two days. I was happy and felt prepared. And yet…Mount Rainier is a mountain that makes it’s own weather.
We had driven over 1000 miles along the Pacific Coast in an epic trip from Seattle to San Francisco. My husband had stayed home with our oldest who was working, and so it was just me and my 14 yr old son and 11 yr old daughter.
Hwy 101 was amazing, mostly two lanes and beautiful. I had survived driving it alone, back feeling fine and only one speeding ticket. Hey, I was passing an 18 wheeler so totally justifiable. But still $300.
The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.
– John Steinbeck
I can’t say it better than Mr. Steinbeck. I have wanted to see the Redwood Forest for as long as I can remember. I was not disappointed.
You Must Travel It For Yourself 