Dear friend and family,

WHAT UP DC IT’S YA BOI YUNG LEE COMIN’ AT YA LIVE WITH MY GANG, THREE LIVE CREW!!!

WHATUP WHATUP WHATUP WE ALL UP IN THE CASCADES AND WE GETTIN’ ELEVATED!!!!!!! 📣📣📣

PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW (AIR HORN SOUNDS 🎺🎺🎺)

By far and away, the best parts of this trip are meeting up with friends on the road. And in a trio to rival Ghetto Boys and Westside Connection in midling popularity, I have my dear friends, Chelsea and Frances, to thank for flying all the way out to Portland and meeting up with me for some incredible hiking in the Cascades 🙂

GIRL GAAAAANG!!!

As seen above, the actual hiking itself in the Cascades at this time of year can be hit or miss. Things started out great at Mount Hood:

And we had a wonderful time hiking up to the snowline and back on that mountain! But the next day, we spent at Mount Rainier and, well:

Yeah the vistas were obscured a bit. But we had a really nice time hiking anyways! The reason for the fog is that pretty much all of Rainier’s peak is still snowed over, and even the slightest bit of rain (we had more than a slight bit) will kick up a stiff fog. The hike up the sunrise side of Rainier was still loads of fun, but the rain only got stiffer each day, and our boots never really dried out to be honest ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯.

Not that that’s a problem with the Kim and Co.®️ Signature Bread Bag Trick™️! Thank you Kim for the idea, you saved my socks many times over in the Cascades!

Even though it rained heavily on the mountain on our second day at Rainier, we still got to enjoy some nice hikes under tree cover, and some museums about the park as well:

We even managed to find BOG IRON!!!!!!!

We also found this wicked tree growing out of the root ball of an older one. Metal, man!

The rain also enabled us to fully appreciate this near roadside art gallery of scrap metal sculptures:

Sure a welder can put it all together, but it takes Mother Nature to add that signature patina!

The last day in the Cascades for all three of us was spent at Mount Saint Helens National Monument:

The clouds are conviently obscuring Mount Saint Helen’s EMBARASSING haircut 😉

Mount Saint Helens, of course, shortened a bit (and, not coincidentally, started giving her height in heels in addition to regular stature) on 18 May 1980:

I love the finality of the exact eruption date compared to “approximately 3,900 years ago” and other dates quoted for her previous eruptions.

Obviously I wasn’t around to take a before and after picture, but the park museum had a few in stock:

Most interesting of all, to me at least, was this lake:

Coldwater Lake, seen above, did not exist before 18 May 1980. When Mount Saint Helens erupted, the tidal wave of mud, ash, and snowlelt racing down the west slopes of the mountain (tearing down howes, bridges, and tens of thousands of acres of timber along the way) swung up into an intersecting valley to the north. The mudpile this created dammed Coldwater Creek, causing it to form the Coldwater Lake, seen above:

It also created a dozen or so of these little islands of eruption scree throghout the lake.

What a lovely thing! Sure, Mount Saint Helens killed over 50 people during its eruption, but at least we… Got a… New… Lake out of it? I guess I admire Mount Saint Helen’s ambitions, being a major lakehead myself, but I question its calculus.

Anyways, after seeing Mount Saint Helens, Frances returned to California while Chelsea and I continued up North to the Tacoma/Olympic Area for some more hiking.

Well, more specifically, Chelsea went on to do some more biking (and conquered Rainier seemingly from every single side) (way to go fam! I admire your mountaineering, but I do not envy your climbs 🙂 ) while I had to take care of multiple car and job issues in town for several days:

I did have some lovely views of Rainier from our AirBnB, though!

And some mad gay banana slugs in the area 💙

@Ellie I only came for the Twin Peaks Fandom clout 😉 (jk thank you very much for the recommendation to see Snoqualmie Falls💙)

All told, Chelsea, Frances, and I had a wonderful time in the PNW, and I am endlessly grateful that you guys would take the time to come and visit me all the way on the other side of the continent. I appreciate your friendship so much! Thank you guys, you’re the best 💙💙💙!!!

Unfortunately, eventually it was time to move on. Chelsea split up from me and eventually flew back to DC, while I meandered up to Seattle next to pow-wow with another, older friend. But I would be remiss if I didn’t tell one more story from Chelsea, Frances, and I’s time together:

So, I have always wanted to experience an Earthquake. I have always wanted to know the fear and the terror of Satan’s tremors rocking the Earth from below. This is not an easy experience to come by in Michigan, where the God-fearing Methodists there have taken it upon themselves to be killed and mained by tornadoes exclusively. “Because if God wanted to smite us, He would do it while the sky is a terrifying green and when we’re all huddling in the basement together and when there’s thunder and lightning and locusts crashing all around! He would never ruin a perfectly good Saturday with the rattlings of an unmaintained heavenly EZ-Chair without some accompanying pomp and circumstance!”

And with that desire in mind, I thought we struck gold one night when the AirBnB we were staying at seemingly began to rattle itself off its hillside, stilt foundations:

Pictured: Frances, LA native and earthquake aficionado, getting excited to see me in my first earthquake.

The house rattled for a minute as expected, but then it rattled for two, then for five, and so many minutes on. I think about the seven minute mark, I finally said “are these supposed to last this long?” Frances said “no, not unless something has really gone wrong.”

Now perplexed, we went outside to see if the vibrations were stronger out weaker out there, and also because of you’re at the 7 minute mark indoors in an Earthquake, experts tell me you should have left a long, long time ago homeboy. And we did find that the vibrations were weaker! More specifically, there were none. None at all, because the house was not rattling in awe at Mother Nature’s raw power, it was rattling under power of General Electric’s over-under washer-dryer combo unit.

You need not imagine my disappointment; here it is:

But I eventually recovered 🙂

That’s all for now everyone,

Thanks again to Chelsea and Frances for making this part of the trip so enjoyable,

Stay well everyone,

Evan 💙