Chush Falls (pronounced “shoosh”) is actually nestled right up against the Sisters Mountains and Broken Top. The drive to get to this trailhead was about an hour from Tam McArthur Rim, all over gravel roads. Oh, and it was absolutely STUNNING. Honestly, even if you don’t do this hike, the drive is still well worth the effort. This was already bringing me closer to these mountains than I had yet been. Looking up at the snowy slopes, I could see every little rock and wisp of cloud clearly and was able to even capture some of this with my camera. And, miraculously, the weather really was clearer over here.
This many mountains is just insane to me. Prior to this trip, this was not what I pictured when I thought of Oregon. This was downright RUGGED! And it was gorgeous. The three mountains in closest proximity to Black Butte, and to one another are the Three Sisters for which this area is named: Middle Sister, North Sister, and South Sister. All three of these mountains are sleeping volcanoes. The North and Middle Sister last erupted ~14,000 years ago and scientists think it’s unlikely that they’ll ever erupt again. However, the South Sister erupted as recently as 2,000 years ago, and could feasibly erupt again. There have been sporadic reports of volcanic rumblings deep within South Sister since 1866, and there have been a couple of minor scares since the late 1980s. Nothing has ever happened, but there is a big pot of magma a few miles beneath the peak of South Sister. Did I mention that South Sister is also the easiest of these mountains to climb? Sign me up for that!! 😵
Orcas, or Killer Whales, were something of a feared creature in the olden days. Apparently, back in the 1800s when this part of the world was first being explored by Europeans, their technical/scientific classification was actually “Monster.” Hilarious as this might seem, it does make some sense. Black whales with sharp teeth and shark fins? Yeah, that would have definitely felt somewhat monstrous to me if I was an early sailor of these waters. The conventional wisdom of the day was that, if you fell in the water, you needed to get out ASAP so an Orca wouldn’t eat you. If you hadn’t already guessed this, there is, in fact, no record of an Orca ever eating a human. But this was still a legitimate fear as recently as the 1960s when they actually mounted a machine gun on a coastal bluff known as Chatham Point with the aim of shooting as many Orcas as possible. 🤯 Somehow, for the time when this gun was actively scouring the seas, the Orcas stayed clear of this area and there were no casualties. So Orca/human tensions have never escalated to be anything more than a cold war. And it was not long after this that human sentiments toward Orcas began to change for the better.
Cortes Island is perfect. I am not speaking figuratively. Literally perfect. Every little detail of this island was so effortlessly interesting, unique, and authentic… I don’t know that I have ever seen a place quite like it. It felt like I was living in a chapter of a book. It was like the entire place was straight out of a Wes Anderson movie. Think Moonrise Kingdom, but on an island off the coast of British Columbia, and mostly populated by adults. I could make a cool Pacific-Northwest-meets-Martha’s-Vineyard Pinterest board inspired by this place. Every property was tastefully weathered and clearly maintained with a personal, practical touch. There were no houses that screamed “VACATION RENTAL” here. Every single one of them looked like they were the active, primary residence of an eccentric gardener.
Avatar Grove is well-named; it really does feel like something out of Avatar. Or maybe Jurassic Park. It is a tangled, mossy labyrinth of ancient, knotted trees rising out of an infinite carpet of prehistoric-looking ferns. Each tree branch is draped with moss, similar to the way Spanish Moss hangs from every tree in Savannah—but in a green, lush, distinctly Pacific Northwest kind of way. Every little detail of this place was fascinating and photogenic. From the mossy, leafy forest floor, to the canopy high above our heads, every inch felt like its own world.
We already talked about how close into the mountains Vancouver is. I have never seen anything like it—at least not for a city as big as this. Northern Vancouver is literally built into the sides of the Cascades, with its streets and buildings sloping up the sides of the mountains as far as physics will allow. So when you start driving northward from Vancouver, you will find yourself in the mountains pretty much instantly. The drive up follows the coastline of a rugged Pacific fjord that comes to a head in the gorgeous little town of Squamish, and from there it’s all mountains. Here’s a map of the trip. It might not look like a huge distance on the map, but’s 2.5 to 3 hour drive to get up there from Vancouver.
Say what you will about Vancouver—there’s no debating that it makes an impression on you. Its iconic glittery, sparkling, glassy skyline set against a backdrop of imposing, snowcapped mountains and moody gray skies is nothing if not striking. But there’s a lot more to this place than whatever this image conjures up for you. Vancouver is an unlikely swirl of old and new, of chic and grit, and of sun and rain. And it will serve as the base camp for our next series of articles.
You can’t actually drive all the way out to Tomales Point. There’s a parking lot and a trailhead next to the historic Pierce Ranch. From there, it’s a 9.4-mile round trip hike to get all the way out to the tip and back. Over the course of this route, there’s a total elevation gain of 1,177 feet. Honestly, it’s a pretty easy hike. I did this when I was fresh off a particularly rough COVID infection, still trying to get my mojo back, so this should give you no pause.
San Francisco is not a flat city. The word “hilly” doesn’t quite cover it. So it should come as no surprise that there are lots of interesting staircases (600+) scattered throughout the city, helping pedestrians scale the city’s steepest nooks and crannies. This much is to be expected. But what I did not expect was that many of these staircases have been turned into hidden works of art. I’ve been to San Francisco a few times, and I have somehow never stumbled across even one of these before. And what you’re about to see isn’t even all of them! We’re going to start in the Richmond District, but then we’re going to head south and spend the rest of this article in the Sunset District.
And we’re back in mainland Seattle from our little trip over to Bainbridge Island! In our first installment, we checked off some of Seattle’s more obvious tourist attractions (i.e. Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, the view of the Space Needle from Kerry Park, etc.). It was very cool, but TODAY we’re going to peel a few more layers off the onion and get into some of Seattle’s quirky b-list attractions. As a city, Seattle has a stronger and more distinct personality than most. I think this cross-section of less-notable items actually did more to help me get to know this place than the major tourist attraction did. It’s all about details.
SO LEMME HITCHU WITH THE DEETS.
