Ten years ago, we made our first visit to Washington state as a family for our Washington Loop vacation.  Mia had great memories of the lush forest we camped at along the Lewis River and wanted to go back and re-experience it before heading to college in the Fall.  Instead of just a couple of nights at the Lower Lewis Falls campground, we decided to spend a few days and explore more of Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which hosts Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Adams.  We drove over 500 miles and hiked almost 25 miles.

This year, we were joined by Mia's friend, Chris, who loves the outdoors, and has a keen eye and enthusiasm for spotting unique features of nature.  At times, having Chris around felt like having our own personal nature guide.

Date: Location:

9/1/2016 Lewis River, Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Picturesque Lower Lewis Falls on the Lewis River

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Maps

The following map has GPS tracks of all of the hikes we did, colored by day.  You can zoom into each hike by clicking on the arrow next to the hike name.  You can also download the full GPS file here.



Google Map Courtesy of GPS Visualizer

Highlights

Here is a list of places visited in just 5 quick days of driving around Southern Washington:

• Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument:
• June Lake Hike
• Lava Canyon Hike
• Miner's Car
• Spirit Lake
• Bear Meadow
• Windy Ridge
• Indian Heaven Wilderness
• Placid Lake
• Indian Heaven Trail
• Cultus Lake
• Deep Lake
• Sawtooth Berry Fields
• Mount Adams
• Takhlakh Lake
• Ollalie Lake
• Chain of Lakes
• Council Lake
• Lewis River (and vicinity) Waterfalls
• Lower Falls
• Middle Falls
• Upper Falls
• Twin Falls
  
• Copper Creek Falls
• Big Creek Falls
• Curly Creek Falls
• Miller Falls
• Guler Ice Caves (and natural bridges)

Lowlights

While the weather was great for the first couple of days, it got gray and cloudy at the end of our trip, forcing us to pack up and leave a day early due to inclement weather.  Gifford Pinchot is expansive.  Mount Rainier, Adams, and Saint Helens all lie at least partly within this forest's jurisdiction.  Driving around to see everything requires patience in traveling many miles over poorly maintained forest roads... not that the National Forest service has much to blame.  This area gets so much rain that roads frequently washout.  Even the paved sections of roads had numerous bumps and potholes due to rain.  Because of the large distances and the quality of road surfaces, visitors to this area will spend a lot of time in the car.  

Favorites

Here's what each family member said was their absolute favorite activity of the trip:

Raymond:	Mount Adams
Amelia:	Twin Falls
Suzanne:	Lava Canyon
Mike:	Lower Lewis Falls

Takeaways

Here are a few final thoughts from our vacation:

• Mount Saint Helens is awe-inspiring.  The after-math of the 1980 eruption can still be seen and felt 36 years later when the Spring blast reduced the summit by 1300 feet of elevation.  Spirit Lake still contains an immense log mat of thousands of trees that were blown down during the explosion.
• The Lewis River waterfalls put on quite the show.  Mike says that the Lower Falls are probably his favorite waterfall he's even seen.  Not super-tall, nor immensely powerful, the beautiful setting, crystal clear water, and rocky shelf that the falls fan off of make for a very unique and charming set of falls.
• Washington's volcanic mountains are majestic.  Mia commented that Rainier appears mammoth no matter where you are in the state.  You can be a hundred miles away, and it still seems in-your-face close.  I guess when you're 14,000 feet tall, you don't have to do much to be impressive for many miles around.  Mount Adams and Mount Saint Helens are beautiful to see as well.  

Photos

We took over 200 pictures of the area, which you can see on our Flickr photo album.