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US Tour 2001/NorthWest Loop

July 29 ~ August 6, 2001
I lived near the NorthWest for 6 years, including 4 months of staying in Seattle. Yet, I never visited the national parks in Washington State. What a shame. In this tour, I finally visited North Cascades, Olympic, and Mount Rainier National Parks. All of them had a few things in common: dramatic mountain ranges, large active glaciers, and beautiful forests. After Washington State, I spend 2 nights at my friend's home in Eugene, Oregon. There are a lot of national parks all along the I-5. But I have visited many of the parks and the time was running short. I drove straight south to San Francisco Bay Area to conclude the US Tour 2001.

About the
Region

Major Places I Visited:

North Cascades NP
Olympic NP
Seattle, Washington
Mount Rainier NP

In North Cascades National Park (1), I stayed for 3 days. This was the longest stay in this tour. The weather weather report said it would be partly cloudy. That means mountain peaks were mostly covered by clouds. But when I saw these peaks through the clouds, they were incredibly rugged, bold, and wild. This park was the most wilderness and desolate place in the US.

Pacific Ocean and beautiful beach in Olympic National Park.

Olympic National Park (2) had unique and diverse features. It had a peak covered with glaciar, a view of Victoria and Colombia River Gorge, the northern most rain forest in the world, and largest remaining undeveloped northwest coast lines. I had to choose where to go depending on what feature I wanted to see. The weather was bad I could not see mountain peaks nor Victoria. But I found walking through the rain forest was very intersting and fun. I bliefly spend some time in

Night at Public Market in Seattle. The market was already closes at 6:00pm...

Seattle (3) for the evening, taking some photos. It could be the most beautiful city, only if it does not have this much rain. I had almost no time left for Mount Rainier National Park (4). When I drove through the park, I knew what I had missed. The Mt. Rainier was not just a pretty peak. It was very rugged and beautiful peak, as well as it had the large glaciar I've ever seen. On top of it, the peak was surrounded by nice forests. When I got to the Mount Saint Helen National Volcanic Monument, I had time only for the visitor center. But it had a good movie and displays about the erruption and the mountain.

On the way back to California, I stopped at Eugene, OR, visiting my old friend. This town is known for being liberal, where quite a few hippies still populate the town. It was only 10 hours of driving from Eugene to San Francisco. The last day of the US Tour, I spend mostly on boring I-5. It was around 10:00pm when I arrived my apartment.

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