Short Version:
We don't run over Jesus, but we do cross Old Man Pass, ride the Lewis River Trail, and have issues with John Banks
Long Version:
The Columbia River serves as the border between Oregon and Washington states. The highway on the Washington side is punctuated by a number of tunnels through spurs of rock thrown south from the nearby hills. Most of them are tidily-arrayed in concrete and brickwork, but a few retain what we assume is the original look; rough-hewn rock. As we exited one of these, we saw our first Jesus-a-like since Southern California, walking west along the highway verge, his long straggly hair and beard flowing over his left shoulder due to the combination of headwind and his marked list to the left. I managed to not run him over, but it was close.
There were a lot of people fishing outside the National Fish Hatchery, which was our cue to turn north, away from the River. We passed through a town called Scabler Hemlock on our way up to Old Man Pass, then copped some serious eyefuls of Mt St Helens on our way down the other side. Pretty soon we were in dense old-growth forest again, and before we knew it we were at the trailhead where the Lewis River 
Trail and the Curly Creek Falls Trail meet. we set up camp right at the trailhead, then filled the evening with swimming and delicious foods and watching bats hunting insects and sleeping really badly*.
We'd long since lined up the Lewis River Trail as an easy mission, suitable as a recovery day ride between big outings. In retrospect, neither of us can remember why we believed it would be so, as maps and literature and internets all agree that the full one-way length of the trail is 14.5 miles, and that it demands reasonable effort levels for much of that length. Theoretically, we could have designated any point aloing the trail our end point and turned back, but in practice, with Janine and I involved that was never going to happen, and it was a weary pair who made it back to the van after the full six hour, 29-mile out-and-back.
The trail surface was in beautiful condition from the start, with a light coatin
g of fir needles and other detritus over hard-pack dirt. It tasted delicious too, as I found out within the first five minutes. And again before the half-hour had
elapsed. We saw several excellent waterfalls and some huge trees, including one recently downed behemoth which had fallen across the trail and had had a path chopped through it. Its trunk diameter was wider than I could span with outstretched arms. There were several really cool walk-
/ bike-in campsites, and a variety of people exploring the trail, including fishermen, famil
ies, and a group of US Forest Service administrative minions who'd been sent out into the woods for the day to see what the point of their efforts actually was. Some of them were having a ball, others looked like they'd happily pave the river and its surrounds and can we please go back to civilization now?
The trail overall was like a bigger, longer, more challenging version of the Clackamas River Trail, with more varied terrain, surrounds, and technical ride challenges. We'd well and truly earned our delicious eggy burritos by the end of the ride, along with the swim and the secret stash bottle of Terminator Stout which magically appeared. We took a stroll to the viewpoint that looked out over the Curly Creek Falls**, then spent the evening reading books and eating delicious foods and chatting to our very chatty new neighbor, Brian, who had a broken back on the mend and a 1972 Winnebago RV which was very very awesome.
We slept much better - no John Banks this time! - then set about preparing for a day recovering from our recovery ride.
* = I dreamed about John Banks. Janine dreamed she was riding her bike down a hill. I told her that didn't sound like a bad thing, to which she replied: "It is when your're trying to sleep."
** = The first drop of the cataract has been pounding its halfway-down-cliff landing area for so long that it`s eaten a passage through the rock, creating a pretty spectacular archway 80 feet up
We don't run over Jesus, but we do cross Old Man Pass, ride the Lewis River Trail, and have issues with John Banks
Long Version:
The Columbia River serves as the border between Oregon and Washington states. The highway on the Washington side is punctuated by a number of tunnels through spurs of rock thrown south from the nearby hills. Most of them are tidily-arrayed in concrete and brickwork, but a few retain what we assume is the original look; rough-hewn rock. As we exited one of these, we saw our first Jesus-a-like since Southern California, walking west along the highway verge, his long straggly hair and beard flowing over his left shoulder due to the combination of headwind and his marked list to the left. I managed to not run him over, but it was close.
There were a lot of people fishing outside the National Fish Hatchery, which was our cue to turn north, away from the River. We passed through a town called Scabler Hemlock on our way up to Old Man Pass, then copped some serious eyefuls of Mt St Helens on our way down the other side. Pretty soon we were in dense old-growth forest again, and before we knew it we were at the trailhead where the Lewis River 
Trail and the Curly Creek Falls Trail meet. we set up camp right at the trailhead, then filled the evening with swimming and delicious foods and watching bats hunting insects and sleeping really badly*.We'd long since lined up the Lewis River Trail as an easy mission, suitable as a recovery day ride between big outings. In retrospect, neither of us can remember why we believed it would be so, as maps and literature and internets all agree that the full one-way length of the trail is 14.5 miles, and that it demands reasonable effort levels for much of that length. Theoretically, we could have designated any point aloing the trail our end point and turned back, but in practice, with Janine and I involved that was never going to happen, and it was a weary pair who made it back to the van after the full six hour, 29-mile out-and-back.
The trail surface was in beautiful condition from the start, with a light coatin
g of fir needles and other detritus over hard-pack dirt. It tasted delicious too, as I found out within the first five minutes. And again before the half-hour had
elapsed. We saw several excellent waterfalls and some huge trees, including one recently downed behemoth which had fallen across the trail and had had a path chopped through it. Its trunk diameter was wider than I could span with outstretched arms. There were several really cool walk-
/ bike-in campsites, and a variety of people exploring the trail, including fishermen, famil
ies, and a group of US Forest Service administrative minions who'd been sent out into the woods for the day to see what the point of their efforts actually was. Some of them were having a ball, others looked like they'd happily pave the river and its surrounds and can we please go back to civilization now?The trail overall was like a bigger, longer, more challenging version of the Clackamas River Trail, with more varied terrain, surrounds, and technical ride challenges. We'd well and truly earned our delicious eggy burritos by the end of the ride, along with the swim and the secret stash bottle of Terminator Stout which magically appeared. We took a stroll to the viewpoint that looked out over the Curly Creek Falls**, then spent the evening reading books and eating delicious foods and chatting to our very chatty new neighbor, Brian, who had a broken back on the mend and a 1972 Winnebago RV which was very very awesome.
We slept much better - no John Banks this time! - then set about preparing for a day recovering from our recovery ride.
* = I dreamed about John Banks. Janine dreamed she was riding her bike down a hill. I told her that didn't sound like a bad thing, to which she replied: "It is when your're trying to sleep."
** = The first drop of the cataract has been pounding its halfway-down-cliff landing area for so long that it`s eaten a passage through the rock, creating a pretty spectacular archway 80 feet up
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