Lake Mysteries Below the 101

Highway 101 wanders up the west side of the Olympic Peninsula as if curious to see this rugged coastline being torn apart by each violent Pacific wave. It gets pushed away from the shore, however, by the longest stretch of wilderness beach in the country, the 73-mile-long Olympic National Park section.
In Forks, the 101 slows down for a few traffic lights. There's an odd energy to Forks - it has a great location a few miles inland from the wild coast and a few miles out of the old-growth-laden National Park interior, but it's economy depended on logging for decades. That industry has diminished, leaving a recession vacuum. And the weather can be downright miserable - about 30 miles inland, Mt. Olympus gets 220 inches of rain a year, most in the continental US.
After Forks, the 101 gives up trying to reach Neah Bay and Cape Flattery, the northwestern-most point in the lower 48. Instead, 101 veers east, crossing the Sol Duc River and its hot springs resort, then hugging the edge of Lake Crescent.
I used to live on Lake Crescent, commuting on the 101 or by boat from one side (my house) to the other, four miles away (my job). I am certain it is one of the most magical places in the world. Over 700 feet deep with a crystal-blue clarity of over 60 feet - I've measured it as a science experiment. One should put the following on their life list: Jump into Lake Crescent on sunny day, open eyes under water and look up.


Crazy mysteries abound below the surface, like the Soap Lady, a missing woman who reappeared years after here disappearance by floating to the surface near some fisherman. Due to a specific chemistry of the water and depth, her flesh had turn to soap. It is an actual scientific process called saponification. The soap lady story... And then there's the recently solved mystery about the young couple (pictured above) who disappeared on their way back to a mountain cabin. Just disappeared and never heard from again, until 73 years later when their car and remains were found hundreds of feet below the 101 on a submerged cliff edge. See that story here

Hwy 101, Foreground

Some shots directly from the Highway 101 (or, in one case, the Hwy 1). Straight from the source, no messing around...

At some point in the geologic future, this forest could be left alone as a dying island off the now-further-east coast, like this forested sea stack...

Oysterville

Oysterville, WA and Apalachicola, FL are like long-lost cousins. Apalach has an actual town core and Main Street, while Oysterville is much smaller, really just an historic village of second homes passed down through generations of the same family. But the oysters and the sense of old and salty and crusty connect these two distant towns.

Banana Yellow and I detoured from the 101 on the final morning of our journey. We took the county road up the narrow spit that points north off the Washington mainland like a thin splinter. To the east, Willapa Bay extends flat and marshy, a perfect environment for oyster growth. Mounds of discarded shells brighten the green, wet landscape with their smooth white interiors. Most of the oysters on menus from northern California and through Oregon boast their fresh Willapa Bay oysters. In Oysterville, the men and women still collect the bivalves on foot, using small metal rakes, different from the long tongs of Apalachicola. They go out at low tides, including sometimes at night. I will return to photograph this process, another great old industry.

The Mouth of the Mighty Columbia

Astoria, OR has had a major revitalization in its historic downtown. The massive stone buildings have been renovated to house a handful of good restaurants (Clemente's, Baked Alaska, Bridgewater Bistro), a few hotels (the Elliot), cafes (Columbian Cafe), theaters (Liberty, Columbia), and shops. One old bank is now a luxury spa (The Banker's Suite).

Dominating the whole scene is the massive Astoria-Megler truss bridge that spans the Columbia River and connects Washington and Oregon. Those who grew up with an Erector Set will be especially impressed. The Columbia River brings water from as far as Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Canada into the Pacific. After 1200 miles, it hits the Pacific with an average of 275,000 cfs. That volume makes it second only to the Missouri-Mississippi output into the Gulf of Mexico.

So much water coming down the pipe frustrates the Pacific Ocean and the two forces battle it out in one of the world's most powerful marine environments. Pacific swells traveling from the coast of Asia slam into All-North-American freshwater in mountains of waves and freakish currents and hydraulics. Early seaborne explorers searching for an inland passage passed right by the Columbia, unable to see the river behind the waves.
The Coast Guard Station at Cape Disappointment on the Washington side routinely performs daring rescues in these conditions. They have a boat that can completely capsize and flip back around. I have always wanted to do a story on these badasses. For now, I walk onto the jetty in rain that's slapping me sideways. The waves slamming into the car-sized boulders of the jetty are terrifying. I'm too scared to take a picture and Banana is getting worried.

I did not take this picture.

Scenic Overlook

The rain came to the Oregon coast about midway up, just past the dunes. Banana and I charged through, stopping less and less until the day ended at Astoria, the town where Goonies was filmed.

Beerquarium

In Newport, there is the Oregon Aquarium. The country has many new shiny aquariums in big cities like Atlanta and Seattle and the one in Monterey, CA is the most highly regarded.
But none of those fancy fishbowls has a Top 5 brewery almost sharing the same parking lot. On a family trip to the aquarium Mom or Dad could slip away from the seahorse tank for a "bathroom break." Depending on your gait, you could be smelling the hops emanating from the Rogue Brewery within 70-90 seconds. In under 4 minutes, you could have a taster tray of four delicious brews in the Tasting Room above the brewery. Back just in time to catch the tail end of the porpoise exhibit.

Here, meet a beer brewer in his natural habitat:

Mark Coon, 37
Lives in: Lincoln City, OR (born Kuna, ID)
Profession: FIlter at Rogue Brewery
Favorite part: Just the beer. The good, natural ingredients.
Least: No, this is a pretty cool place. Most people are nice.
Free time: Fish and hunt and camp. Outdoor stuff.
Travel: Germany: my brother lives there.
Book: It'd be about outdoors. It'd be kinda like that Into the Wild.
Last meal: Hamburger and corn and my wife made some potatoes au gratin.
Religion: Mormon

1pm, Rogue Brewery, Newport, OR

Hot Love for You, Fried Eggs for Me

Banana Yellow does not mess around. When he sees a foxy number, he pulls right up, smooth as theater-pumped margarine. Pamela, Banana later told me, is from Junction City, a medium-sized town inland near I-5. She's a 2003 and enjoys frequent trips to the coast though the salty air can be corrosive and troublesome in the long run. She does not normally hang around with a stranger in the parking lot.
I left them to their business and went to my favorite breakfast spot on the coast, Yachat's Landmark Restaurant. It's old, round dining room sits on stilts over the Yachats River's mouth into the Pacific. Sea gulls swim and fly.
I once saw a salmon swimming up from the ocean. It struggled for fifteen minutes in the inches-deep Yachats flow before finally succumbing. The gulls were on her in seconds. I ate my pancakes and eggs and bacon and drank my coffee just like I do today.
Jazz plays and a lively spirit runs through the place, even with the nighttime lounge behind my table darkened and closed at this morning hour. There's no one else in here. Just me, the tall waitress who's friendly but just barely, and the cook who speaks spanish and makes good bacon.

Elevator-Accessed Sea Cave

The billboards proclaim, "World's Largest Sea Cave" for the massive opening beneath Hwy 101 south of Yachats. But their silent yell should boast, "World's Only Elevator-Accessed Sea Cave Full of Moaning Water Beasts That Smells Like Fish Food."
I reluctantly pay my $11 in the roadside shop that is exactly the place to go if looking for small dangling sea-lion paraphernalia. The elevator leaves from a small deck platform and looks just like any office elevator in the city. It only goes down and the lights above the door measure the feet from 20 to 200. 200 feet down to the cave. The doors open to a black hallway with some displays cut into the rock walls, a carpet, and a reak of fish. The older gentleman who is the cave's guide, says he doesn't mind the stench, though his wife wouldn't be caught dead in there.
The scene in the 125-foot-tall cave is impressive. The lions fit into every corner of exposed rock, occasionally wiggling off into the rising and falling surf that enters through an unseen opening to the right. It looks and sounds like hundreds of angsty teenagers lounging about in the senior lounge, being whiny, chirpy, and moany.
I normally stay away from caves with carpets and lighted displays, but it's not often you see, hear, and smell 180 sea lions beneath your scenic drive.

Best Run Ever Run

I wake up in the Winchester Bay Inn – owned by the same family for over 30 years – and head into the pre-dawn. It’s that bright, almost neon blue light you get in wet environments on cloudy dawns. North of Winchester Bay and Reedsport, lives what I consider the greatest six-mile coastal run ever created. I loop it every time I pass here and it is always empty and amazing. It’s got wet, dark, soft spruce forests, massive dunes, stubby beach forest, and a mile of wide, isolated wide-open beach before it climbs back into the dunes and through another few miles of forest single-track. I’ve never seen another person on it. Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you exactly how to find it.

After the Grease in a Biscuit

The redwood forest, when left un-kitsched, is great for a nap. The Avenue of the Giants parallels Hwy 101 north of Arcata for 31 miles. It weaves in and out of dark redwood corridors, each dedicated to redwood supporters. The groves have that light, energy, sometimes smell, of sacred, ancient cathedrals. Or, of course, it could be the other way around...
For naps, nothing can beat the soft ground under a redwood on a warm day. Looking up from the source is the best way to see these beauties.

Three Ingredients

It ain't complicated, the road trip. Not everyone can have a banana yellow ride that burns up the road like a silver DeLorean in a microwave, but the following three morning essentials will set the charge to the day...

Cozy roadside lodging, vintage fonts preferred.



A brisk morning walk to a scenic vista.



Grease in a biscuit, half-good coffee in a short, thick mug, and internet in a laptop.