I heard that Vancouver is a beautiful city long ago. It’s actually not very far away, just 7-8 hours driving. But we need visa to enter Canada as Chinese citizens. The first time I planned a visit was in the summer of 2001. But when I tried to get a traveling signature, I couldn’t find my I-20 and then realized that I mailed it back to China for Yinan’s visa. So I had to cancel that trip. Now four years later, we finally decided to implement the visit, with Tian and Guohua.

After some preparation and research, we took off on August 18th, Thursday in the afternoon for Seattle. The traffic in Portland was quite heavy. It took us over 5 hours to get Seattle. Fortunately no one was starved to death when we arrived at around 8:30. We had a dinner together with the Seattle gang at Old Sechuan in Redmond near Microsoft. I haven’t dined there for a long time and their dishes are still so delicious. I guess I was devouring since I was so hungry.

We got up early the next morning for the visa. The Canadian consulate is very close to where Zhihong works so we had no big problem finding the place with Zhihong on board. Things went quite smoothly. The visa officer just asked several regular questions. I guess I had been sloppy for too long. When she asked me if we have any friends in Canada to visit, I replied “not really”. She seemed a little unhappy and asked “what do you mean not really”. I had to rephrase and said “sorry, I mean, not at all”. She has some French accent but generally I had no problem understanding her. Anyway, we had to wait for a couple of hours before getting the visa. We decided to walk to the Pike Place Market which isn’t too far. Well, Seattle isn’t that big anyway. It was nice to walk in the morning fresh air on the waterfront. Pike Place Market is quite busy even on a weekday. I had been to the market for so many times so I showed the two kids the original Starbucks shop and Athenian Bar where Tom Hanks and the crew resorted when shooting Sleepless in Seattle. I always liked that bar and its unspeakable romantic atmosphere.

We got the visa a little before noon. We had a lunch at Seven Star Pepper near downtown. The lunch wasn’t that good but we were lazy to drive too far. We then hit the road heading Canadian border. The traffic on I-5 between Seattle and Everett was quite heavy. It became a little better after Bellingham which is already very close to the border. There was a hell of traffic at the border too. We waited for about an hour until we finally stepped on Canadian soil. As we nearing Vancouver, we were stuck in the traffic again. Having lived in a small town for a long time, we are not used to heavy traffic. Since we were not moving too fast anyway, we took off Highway 99 and headed for Steveston, a historic fisherman’s wharf just south to Vancouver. When we arrived, there were a bunch of people sitting by the dock fishing. But I didn’t see them catching anything. Well, I guess the spirit of fishing is sitting there having nothing to do instead of catching fish. The scene in the dusk was beautiful and peaceful. Washington State’s Mountain Baker was in sight to the east with the rosy ray casting on it from the setting sun above the Pacific Ocean.

There is a famous historical fish & chip place at the wharf. The chips were terrible although the fish was good. But hey, I got several very good shots for Tian by the wall.

We headed back to Highway 99 and went to Richmond for dinner. Richmond looks like a new and clean city. There are Chinese restaurants everywhere. The restaurant we went was not bad. Better than those in Seattle, in my opinion. Vancouver has the fame of having the best Chinese food in North America, which I would later found true. But it was not cheap at all. And we have to pay 15% tax!

We hit the road for Vancouver after the dinner. The evening breeze blows into the car through the open window, brining salty air into my hair. The smell of the sea intoxicated me. It seems that no one was obeying the speed limit. I was already doing 60 miles per hour where the speed limit was 60 km per hour but I still was having problem catching up everybody. People were probably stuck in the traffic jam for too long :). Richmond is very close to Vancouver. After about 5 minutes, we were on the bridge connecting Richmond and Vancouver. The first half of the bridge was a slight uphill. After climbing all the way up, suddenly the night scene of the whole city is presented in front of us! It was all dark and the lights were up. The scene was just fantastic.

OK, this is a long overdue travel log. I had been lazy. But it’s better late then never, isn’t it?

Standing in the Cascade Range, the active volcano Mt Rainier is part of the Ring of Fire . I had been to the Mt Rainier NP a couple of times in 2001, once in March and once in August. But I haven’t really explored it too well. It’s the first time that other three companies have visited the NP. So it is intended to be a casual and easy trip.

We did some shopping and picked up the rental car on Thursday (July 21st) afternoon. It was a Taurus again :(. I really wish Hertz can give me something exciting to drive, like a Subaru. The trunk of a Taurus is too small. We had some serious headache packing everything in. We have four people this time and two sleeping bags were too big. I finally had to cram a sleeping bag under the rear window so all I see in the mirror is the sleeping bag :). We took off on Friday morning at around 10. The weather wasn’t too good in Corvallis. We had some scattered showers. There were heavy clouds all along I-5. I was worrying a little bit. We had a nice lunch at Longview and went on. We arrived at Paradise at around 4. As I expected, the weather wasn’t perfect. It was very cloudy. The peak isn’t very visible from the visitor center. So we just wondered around in the visitor center and left for the campground at Cougar Rock. We were lucky to get the last campsite with two tent pads for the two consecutive days. I had camped here four year ago. It’s really a nice and comfortable campground. My only complaint is that our campsite is a little close to the road so it’s a little noisy when vehicles pass by.

We bought some campfire log and then started setting up the tent. Things went smoothly. One tent is missing a pole but it didn’t seem to impose a serious problem. I then started setting up the campfire when Yinan was cooking. It turned out to be a big challenge setting the fire. The log just refuses to burn :(. I guess it was because it’s too wet due to the weather. We had to keep blowing air to keep the fire going.

It was already not that cold, even at this elevation. We had one night of very good sleep. I got up around 6 in the morning and cooked breakfast for everyone. It was freezing in the morning. I had to keep running and jumping to keep warm. Since we are staying at the same place for the second night, we didn’t have to break camp. That saved a lot of time and trouble. It was a sunny day. The sun shines through the trees, casting warmth on the road. We took off and headed for Whiteriver where there will be a ranger tour. It took almost 1.5 hours to get there due to the winding roads. Whiteriver is at a higher elevation. There is a big FCFS campground. The facilities look not bad. I suppose climbers who summit from the North side would camp here and leave here for Camp Shurman.

Not too many people came to the tour. The ranger is a girl who works part time in the park. She is from Cleveland and graduated from Brown. We walked a trail leading to an open area where we can have an overview of Emmon Glacier. Along the walk, she educated us with some knowledge about trees. But I guess I still can’t distinguish fir from hemlock :(. I am a total idiot when it comes to plants. There were a couple of elderly ladies in the group. I overheard them talking and learned that one of them summitted Rainier 40 years ago from the North face. The other did Mt Hood. Hmm, I guess the way I looked at them changed immediately :).

At the end of the trail, we had an overview of Emmon Glacier, which is said to be the biggest glacier in 48 states. We can clearly see the boundary between the trees and glacial moraine, where the glacier retreated over the past 150 or so years.

After the tour, we left Whiteriver for Sunrise. Sunrise is one of the two most important areas of interest in the park (the other being Paradise). Since we didn’t plan to do too much hiking, we chose a short trail, about 3 miles round trip, located to the south of the visitor center. The trail runs through very beautiful meadows. It was a blooming season. Subalpine flowers are all over the hills, dotting the green meadow. We took a wild flower guide from the visitor center. Otherwise I wouldn’t know what those flowers are called. Come to see the beauty of them here .

It was still early when we got back to the parking lot. So we hiked another trail to the Frozen Lake. It wasn’t a very interesting trail. We then shared the watermelon we brought in our cooler. A cold watermelon in a summer afternoon is really a feast.

While we drove back to Cougar Rock campground, we witnessed the sun setting below the mountains. Mt Rainier is very beautiful in the dusk. It wasn’t too dark when we arrived our campsite. After the painful experience with the campfire the day before, I decided to immediately embark working on it :). But surprisingly, the fire was up very quickly and stable. I guess it was because the weather during the day was good and dry. After dinner, we huddled around the fire and talked, nice and warm. Hmm, the simple joy of life

I slept very well that night, without waking up even once till the daylight breaks. I cooked breakfast and woke everyone up. After breakfast, we broke camp and packed all the stuffs. It would be another nice sunny day. We were going to do some casual hiking around Paradise area. But we stopped at the Reflection Lakes. The sun was already up. But we still got very good reflections in the late.

By the time we arrived Paradise, the visitor center was not open yet. But the deer already woke up for breakfast  

The trail map looks like a maze. Fortunately there are posts at all the forks. We were basically following the Skyline trail. At Glacier Vista, there was a fantastic view of Nisqually Glacier. 

Along the trail, we met a lot of people coming down, carrying crampons and ice axes. I suppose those are the people who summitted from Camp Muir that morning. Hmm, I am seriously longing for the summit of Mt Rainier now. One year of hard training and some ice and snow skills might get me there, at least from the south face :).

As the trail turns around, it splits and one fork leads to Pebble Creek, further to Camp Muir. There is an open view of that trail. We can see tons of people on the trail, leaving a string of clear footprints on the snowfield. I guess at this busy season, you don’t really a map nor compass to get to Camp Muir. We took a lunch break at Panorama point. It’s so called because there is a wide view where many peaks can be seen, including Baker, St Helens, Hood, etc. But it was kinda cloudy. We can barely recognize Hood. During our lunch, two chipmunks attracted to the smell kept annoying us. They just wouldn’t go away no matter how we tried to drive them. They would even jump to our backpacks for food. Gluttonous small guys! 

Panorama Point was the highest point on the Skyline Trail, at 6800 feet. The following trail was basically down hill, with loose gravels though. We crossed a small creek, very small, but with very lovely mosses. 

We took a shortcut when the trail meets Golden Gate Trail, which turned out to be a very beautiful trail, along which are big meadows covered with colorful blooming wild flowers. I recognized bear grass and magenta paintbrush. 

The scene was just amazing, when we returned to the parking lot, my 512MB CF card was already full! That’s at least 200 pictures :O. After a short break, we took our way out. We didn’t want to get home too late. We stopped by Narada Falls, which is just several hundred yards away from the road. Hmm, I read some good comments about the fall. But hey, we are just back from Yosimite

The rest of the trip was just driving on I-5 and having dinner at Portland. We had some good argument on the way home, which made everybody wide awake