We stayed in Portland for several days, having work done on Next Chapter by the crew at Outside Van. We spent one of those days looping through forested mountains to the Oregon coast and back. This is Short Sand Beach in Oswald West State Park, northwest of Nehalem.
Sunlit forest, Oswald West.
Weathered Douglas fir.
No visit to Portland is complete without a trip to the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park.
Van work complete, we headed north to Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument — and into rainy weather. This is an overlook on the Windy Ridge road that under clear skies would offer a great view of the volcano and its surroundings.
Nothing to see here.
We returned the next day to find conditions considerably improved.
Wet campsite in Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
Forty-one years after the great eruption, the forest has regrown but the surface of Spirit Lake is still covered with dead trees torn from the surrounding hillsides.
The mountain still didn't want to show its face.
Vegetation is slowly colonizing the massive landslide that engulfed the lake and the resorts along its shoreline.
Our boondocker camp in the Gifford Pinchot came with an inexplicable amenity.
The day we left Washington and headed back to Oregon finally gave us a clear view of Mount St. Helens.
We camped for the night in Mt. Hood National Forest and hiked to Mirror Lake, which offers a nice view of the mountain.
Our final 2 days and nights of camping were in the best site of the trip: Right on the banks of the Metolius River in Deschutes National Forest, not far from the town of Sisters.
