Birthday Adventure in the Beautiful Forests of Washington

June 17 is my birthday. This year I wanted to head to the great outdoors. So, I decided to go north and see some waterfalls that I hadn’t seen for a long time. The last time I saw was up there was with my brother Steen before I got married.

Magnus decided he would dress quite snazzy for the occasion:

We made a brief stop at Eagle Cliff and I caught some nice bugs, including a toad bug. Then we went to Lower Lewis River Falls (43 ft. tall). It was very full with water at this time of year. And the color of the water was amazing. It is also a loud waterfall and Magnus didn’t seem to appreciate that much.

This is the view looking at the downstream at the top of the falls and a close-up of one part of the top (that is a lot of power).

I saw this little guy hanging out on a tree and thought it was a neat silhouette:

Next was Big Creek Falls (125 ft. tall). It is a hard one to see, because of the angle, but it is also a short walk. The lighting and spray did make a nice rainbow at the base of the falls.

Here I am with Magnus. He wanted to be carried for a little while so he could look around better.

The third waterfall was Curly Creek Falls (75 ft. tall). This one is a bit unique in that it has a natural arch over it (actually, I found out latter that there are two arches, the second is being covered by the high amount of water follow). This is a pretty cool waterfall.

Here is a close-up of the main arch:

To get up to here, we drove through Woodland, but to get home we continued around and drove home through Carson and the Gorge. On that route you come to this wonderful view point of Mt. St. Helens.

One of the things I like about the mountains up here is that doting them are very prominent peaks. Unlike mountains in places like Utah, the tallest peaks are much taller than the surrounding peaks. This gives the Cascade Range a different feel than the Rockies. And it makes the big mountains stick out better:

Going home through Stevenson, WA, I wanted to see this strange rock that I saw on a site that I like. The site called it the Skamania Petroglyph, but no other info was given. It sits outside the Skamania County Courthouse and has no identifiers or info there either. I hadn’t told Ruth what I was looking for, but she saw it first and said, “There’s a weird rock with doodles all over it.”

And this picture is for Rosanne who enjoyed seeing horsetails while she stayed with us, waiting for Magnus.

That night my family came over for Birthday celebrations (more here). It was a good birthday.