The Gypsy's Pages

Washington State Photos

Here are some photos from during the time that I was in the Tacoma/Seattle/Mt. Rainier area.  Above is a picture of me in front of Mt. Adams, which a couple of tourists were gracious enough to take for me.  Yes, that is a goatee, and yes, I still have it.

One of the nice things about my little 4x4 Toyota Tacoma is that it allows me to camp in all kinds of great out-of-the-way places like this valley area here.  This is north of Mt. Rainier in the Mt. Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest, and although it was pretty damp down in this area, I had no problem getting in and out of this spot.  Of course, since it was raining most of the time I was camping here, I spent a lot of time reading in the trailer, but I was able to get out and do some hiking.  That was when I found the sinuous waterfall in the next picture.

If you feel a case of vertigo while looking at this photo, it's because the stream is actually running at a very steep angle, somewhere between being a stream and a waterfall.  In a horizontal distance of about 10-12 feet, this stream drops about 50 feet.  It's tucked away along a seldom-used trail that I found.  I think it was worth the trek through the rain to get to see it up close.

With my neat little 4x4 I was able to get up to some nice mountainside campsites also.  This is the view from a wonderful campsite just a mile farther up the road from the backwoods camping site.  From this spot I had some great sunsets over the White River valley.  And because it was so far from the city lights, I had some great night sky view.  I even saw my first aurora borealis (northern lights) while at this spot!  It was during a time of heavy solar activity, so the northern lights came pretty far south even though it was summer time.  The northern sky had streaks of white that I at first mistook for fog or clouds.

These last 3 scenes are from the Mt. Rainier area.