Pacific Northwest Backroad Adventures

Who would have thought that a Friday trip to the Whiskey Dick Road Management Area near Ellensburg, Washington would bring out more participants than most weekend trips.

Well Jerry (aka SoggyMountain) picked a wonderful day for a Backroad Drivers Northwest tour of the Whiskey Dick. Hands down, this was the warmest day of 2008 to date.

The meeting place that morning was the Bar 14 restaurant in Ellensburg. In attendance for the days trip was of course Jerry from Yakima driving his full size Jeep SJ Wagoneer; (and if I get the names wrong, please forgive and let me know to correct them) Phil and his son Travis from Newcastle, driving the white Ford Explorer; Paul from Tacoma driving the other Ford Explorer; Jim (stucky) driving the white Chevy Pickup (I forgot to ask where Jim was from); Trish and Tammy from Bothel driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; John and Cindy from Monroe driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; Sid from Renton driving his Jeep Wrangler, Peter and Don (I forgot to ask where they were from or if I did, I didn’t write it down) driving the Sportsmobile van; myself in my 80-series Toyota Land Cruiser; and Bill from Ellensburg who joined us for breakfast but had to supervise a fencing property today so he couldn’t join us.

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The photos I shot during the Backroad Drivers Northwest trip to the Whiskey Dick Road Management Area are now posted for your viewing. You can view them at Exploring the Whiskey Dick

Enjoy.

What were you doing the day Mt. St. Helens blew it’s top?

I realize that anybody under the age of 28 wasn’t even born so this question does not apply to you.

I was 16 at the time. I was with my dad and cousin Frank at a bass fishing tournament with the Evergreen Bass Club on Silver Lake in Cowlitz County (only about 30 miles West of Mt. St. Helens). It was a beautiful clear sunny morning (much like it is this morning as I’m writing this). All weekend, we were hoping to see a puff of steam or a small ash plume, but all was quiet. I has witnessed several before on my frequent trips to Kelso.

Sometime around 8:30 AM, my dad had to head back to the resort to use the facilities. So he powered up the motor and we were heading back to the resort and he pointed at the mountain and when I looked up, we watched the initial blast and then Mt St Helens disappeared (just like the footage you always see of the initial eruption and landslide).

So we continued heading back to the resort. When we arrived, a lot of people were freaking out that they were going to die. My dad just calmly observed the chaos and decided to wait a little while until all the drama died down. Eventually word got to us about the I-5 bridge over the Toutle River was closed. That’s when my dad made the decision that we were staying for a while longer.

So what did we do, we motored the boat over to a store on the lake where one could dock a boat, he went inside the store and bought a case of beer, and we motored the boat into the middle of the lake and watched the ash plume (obviously this is nothing I would recommend doing today - time were different then).

After a few hours, we eventually got word that the Toutle River bridge was open again, and that’s when we loaded the boat on the trailer and headed home.

We never got any ash on us. I think most of it ended up in eastern Washington. The sky got dark (because it blocked out the morning sun) and the coolest part was all the lightening in the ash cloud. We never heard the explosion from our location. I’m not sure if that was because the motor idling or not.

This experience is something that I’ll never forget. I feel very lucky to be in the right spot at the right time to actually witness history and see the actual initial explosion and landslide occur.

What were you doing that day?

If you happen to have a problem logging into the forum, be sure you are logging into http://www.pnwadventures.com/forum rather than the old URL format of forum.pnwadventures.com

If you receive the “server busy” error message, be sure to log into your account.

Steve

As you can tell if you’ve been a regular visitor to pnwadventures.com, I made changes to the theme of the blog. The change from a black background to a white background better matches the forum’s theme (though not exactly — yet). I also included a flash header image that rotates through photos I have taken over the past several years on various outdoor vehicle dependent adventures.

Anybody who has Friday, May 16 available, we have a great off-road trip to the Whiskey Dick area near Ellensburg, Washington. We explored some this area last year and there is a lot more roads we missed. There’s going be some nice weather as well. Read more about the details of this trip at Scouting The Whiskey Dick

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May 12-18, 2008 has been proclaimed “Bear Awareness Week” by Washington state Governor Christine Gregoire.

As reported by the The Grizzly Bear Outreach Project (GBOP):

Governor Gregoire established Bear Awareness Week to encourage people to learn more about our ursine neighbors, how to avoid conflicts with them, and to appreciate these majestic creatures in Washington - one of just four states that is wild enough to still support both species of bear.

This is great information for all of us who spend time enjoying the outdoors. If you haven’t encountered a bear yet, you eventually will.

Read more about Bear Awareness Week Activities at Governor proclaims official Bear Awareness Week

With the price of gasoline approaching $4.00 per gallon, more and more people are trading in their “gas guzzling” SUV or truck for a more fuel efficient vehicle. Most people simply think about much it costs to fill up their tank without considering the actual costs.

The way I figure it, I own my Land Cruiser free and clear. If I was to go out and finance a new vehicle, the payments alone would probably exceed $500 (and probably be much more). That’s a lot of gas I could buy each month.

I found a post on pricewheels.com that lays out the true costs of replacing your old vehicle. You can read it at Dumping Gas Guzzler For Fuel Sipper May Cost More Than You Think

Here are some new discussions on the pnwadventures.com forums in the past week:

Pett Toilet - A discussion on the Pett Dry Toilet System and some related topics

Cot Tent - Discussion on using tent cots.

Ahtanum trails Clean-up (July 26th, 2008) - An invitation to participate in the clean up area of trails in the Ahtanum area including Sedge Ridge, Whites Ridge, and Foundation Ridge.

Portable Hitch Kitchen - Discussion on creating a portable kitchen that could be easily carried on a hitch and removed at a campsite for use.

And of course, there are many on-going discussions.

I just updated the forum to vBulletin 3.7 and installed the Search Engine Optimization plugin by vBSEO. You can read about the new features and updates at New Forum Features and Updates.

Steve