#mountain loop highway

[artemisblackwing]

A farm by highway 530 near Darrington, Washington State.

Media: watercolor

[coiour-my-world]

"Into the Mist" | Lake-22, Mountain Loop HWY, WA || Chris Williams

[gifjakes]

Hiking Season? Ski Season? Hello, GoodBye.

The snow is starting to run out here in the PNW... A couple weekends ago, some buddies and I went to explore a new zone off the Mountain Loop Highway, specifically the northeast side of Sloan Peak.

We were enticed by the promise of novel, rolling terrain with cool features and a glacier!

But before we could get to that, we had to hike a bit in the dirt. I always forget how pretty the forests and natural features of Washington are in the winter, because they become much more barren and stark -- almost brutal for lack of a better word. When it's warm and green, it's a nice feeling to stroll through the trees and take it all in.

Overall, I'd give this trip a 6/10. Bumpy and scary pothole road that we barely made it up thanks to Matthew and his trusty Subaru. Hiking in the dirt, big scary avalanche paths on the way to cool terrain.

[onehikeaweek]

Panorama from Silver Tip Peak.

[wonderlesch]

Exploring Snowy Road Trips

Read on to embark on a journey through picturesque Snowy Winter Road Trips in the U.S. Discover snow covered roads, charming villages and hidden gems.

Hello and welcome to Exploring Snowy Road Trips. The winter season has rolled around. The family gatherings have come to an end, at least for the moment. Many people prefer to hunker down and stay cozy indoors. However, not for the adventurous souls and nature enthusiasts. Winter presents a unique opportunity to embark on breathtaking road trips through snowy landscapes. One of the most magical…

[detragefietser]

Mustang Loop Trail by Robert Baker Photography Via Flickr: Cottonwood Canyon

[silhouetteofacedar]

Halves

One of many little moments on a long journey.

AO3

The views along Washington State’s Cascade Loop are breathtaking, according to the brochures from the stand in the lobby of their motel in Chelan. Just past the pseudo-Bavarian enclave that is Leavenworth, Highway 2 hugs the curves of the Wenatchee River through Tumwater Canyon. The scenic byway is tucked between the churning waters and dramatic, towering crags of quartz crested with pines. It’s early spring, and the mountains slowly shake off their winter coats to reveal fresh leaves on the aspens and the first blooms of trillium creeping along the ground. 

Dana Scully sees none of this.

It’s an unfortunate aspect of their work as federal agents; thousands of miles traversed across the continental United States, untold hours spent in anonymous rental vehicles with mysterious odors and pilling upholstery. She knew when she joined the Bureau three years ago that the travel involved would be less than glamorous, but there’s something particularly demoralizing about viewing America the Beautiful solely through a windshield splattered with insect carcasses. 

Scully always falls asleep on long car rides; lulled into slumber by the hum of the engine, the murmur of tires on asphalt, the fact that Mulder sometimes stops talking long enough for her to drop off. She wonders if it’s because his jaw gets tired; in the relatively short time they’ve worked together she’s never known him to run out of things to say.

Her sleep thins on the edges as Mulder wakes her with a soft brush of his knuckle on the tip of her nose. She hears him say they’re still a few hours away from the Seattle field office, but he’s hungry and his long grasshopper legs need a stretch. 

Scully hums in assent, eyelids still heavy as she rearranges herself into a more upright position in the passenger seat. They’ve arrived at one of those proverbial wide spots in the road that bears a “Welcome To” sign, as though that gives it a sense of place when it boasts little more than a gas pump and a convenience store. 

Apparently, this place is called Cole’s Corner, and a hand-painted banner next to a particularly stubborn melting snow berm says there are world-famous milkshakes up ahead. 

Mulder pulls into the gravel parking lot outside what looks like a small house with pink and teal trim. A neon sign advertising banana pancakes hangs in the window.

Scully is hungry and groggy from her nap in the car, her hips and legs stiff from sitting too long.

She gathers her coat around her and slips out of the sedan, the scent of wet pine and moss filling her nose. Droplets of mist bead the shoulders of her coat, clinging to the wool. She can feel her hair creeping into fuzzy curls at the nape of her neck, coaxed into a frizz by the damp Pacific Northwest air. It’s been about a year since they were first in this part of the country together, tearing through waist-high ferns in the dark cedar groves of Bellefleur, hands outstretched. That first case together felt like a rebirth, wherein she shed her old self like her red bathrobe in candlelight in front of her strange new partner. The rich scent of damp earth and rotting logs filled her lungs as she was baptized by the cold Oregon rain, forever changed.

Heavy droplets begin to fall, and she pulls her collar tighter as they ascend the steps to the diner’s front door.

The restaurant is small but warm, every inch of the walls covered in 1950s pop culture memorabilia. A jukebox plays Buddy Holly in the corner; an Elvis-shaped clock swings its pendulum legs in time. Something greasy and heavenly is sizzling in the kitchen, the aroma pulling her in. Scully smiles softly; leave it to Mulder to stumble upon the kitschiest restaurant in the entire state of Washington.

They settle into a small corner booth with sticky grey vinyl seats. They create an odd picture at the table in the midst of hikers in denim and windbreakers; two figures of dramatically different heights draped in layers of dark fabric, heads inclined towards each other with an intimacy that can’t be easily explained. They’ve composed this images together countless times in greasy spoons across the country, travel-weary and disoriented by differing time zones. Sometimes they talk; occasionally they argue. Often they get mistaken for a couple, which irks Scully primarily because she mistakes them for one too. It’s unconscious; Mulder’s warm, firm hand on the small of her back sends messages to her weary brain that her body frequently assigns to the Boyfriend category.

Mulder has that effect on her often. He bursts through barriers, occupying space that had previously only been inhabited by intimate partners. He crams himself into her psyche, poking through neatly filed expectations and burrowing into her soul, creating his own uniquely shaped spot in her being. 

She tries not to think about it; tries not to notice his full lower lip, the charming mole on his right cheek, the way he leans in too close when he talks to her. How he curves over her, his warm voice in her ear. At the office, she feels alert and well-armed against her physical reactions, can easily take her thoughts captive before they get away from her. But when she’s drowsy, far from home, hungry, those base feelings rise faster than she can tamp them back down. He makes her feel small in the best ways and she’s in danger of losing herself in the cover of his wingspan. 

She needs caffeine.

All the waitresses at this establishment have the same name tag; hot pink with the name “Flo” etched into the plastic. A cheery, bespectacled young Flo with blond braids takes their orders, pours cups of too-strong coffee. Scully chooses a BLT, light on the mayo. Mulder orders a grilled cheese sandwich with ham and tomatoes and a cup of chicken and rice soup. 

Scully gazes out the fogging window, slowly warming and wakening in the cozy bustle of the diner. Johnny Cash sings of a ring of fire. Plates clatter in the kitchen, a spoon clinks in a chipped coffee mug. Raindrops fall.

Silence feels more friendly these days, a comfortable pause filling what little space remains between her and Mulder. Words have become only one of the many ways in which they communicate. Their hands carry on their own conversation as the waitress brings their plates; understanding and collaboration in the simple passing of a napkin or nudging the salt across the table.

Mulder picks up a half of his sandwich, toasted a golden brown and cut neatly at a diagonal. “You want a bite?” he asks, holding it out across the speckled formica tabletop, and Scully realizes that it’s the first thing he’s said aloud directly to her since they got out of the car. She hesitates, then leans forward and takes a small, crisp bite out of the corner. Their knees brush momentarily, and she sits back in the booth and considers the flavors of butter and melted cheddar on her tongue.

“Good, huh?” Mulder asks, taking a bite himself. “My dad made them this way, but not on a griddle. Open-faced in the broiler so the tomatoes could get browned.”

Scully nods, stirring her coffee and blowing on it gently. “I haven’t had a grilled cheese in years,” she muses. “It’s the perfect rainy day food.”

“We can trade halves, if you want,” he suggests.

A small smile creeps across Scully’s mouth. Her Mulder has a delightful boyish streak that she pretends not to find appealing. “Race you to the playground afterward?” she jokes. Regardless, she picks up a half of her BLT and places it on his plate, taking the remaining half of his grilled cheese. 

He flashes her a brief, dazzling smile before taking another bite of his sandwich. Scully feels her cheeks warming slightly and turns her attention to her lunch. A full Mulder smile, with bright eyes and teeth, is almost too much for her to bear. A dart of sunlight spearing through a sky blanketed with soft gray clouds. 

Maybe someday she’ll tell him how he makes her feel, how sometimes her heart tumbles in her chest at the sight of him. How his most annoying moments are simultaneously the most endearing, how she’s beginning to love him just a little in spite of herself.

Maybe he already knows.

But for now they’ll just trade portions of their lunches, pass the ketchup, pool the crumpled bills in their wallets when the check comes. Travel in silence as they drive over Steven’s Pass, the view ahead blotted by low-hanging clouds.

[caelyne]

clunk-clunk-clunk. the skies overhead were grey, and there was a slight chill in the air. clunk-clunk-clunk, went the crumpled soda can along the pavement that lied between the sparse highway and a dried up riverbed.

fuck this can in particular, the blue-furred feline thought as she sauntered up the path, rearing her leg up for another kick.

THUNK!! she watched it go flying into the nearby bushes. it was a little more excessive than she intended, but she wasn't about to go fishing through all those branches to find it again. she shrugged and kept moving. she figured some good samaritan would come along and clean up her mess at some point. regardless, the real problem at hand now being that she had nothing to vent her frustrations on. she plopped down on the curb.. not a soul in sight, save for the occasional vehicle that zoomed past. as a line of cars began to form in the distance, she couldn't help but eye the couple of rocks at her side. it was… tempting. but the idea of dealing with someone who cared a little too much about their expensive hunk of metal didn't seem worth the trouble.

she fell onto her back and gazed up at the sky. she needed… someone. or someTHING to yell at. just any way she could exorcise this demonic frustration that welled within her. the faces of her fr- "Friends" flashed into her mind again and her vision went red. with a yell, she stood up and hurled one of those rocks into the dead river behind her. she watched its arc with fury until it disappeared with a puff of sand and a satisfying thud. she breathed heavily through her teeth as she fixated on the spot where it landed. a moment passed before she remembered that she was a person, and that there was more to the world than the white hot fury that she felt. she wiped her eyes and continued onward.

that's why she was out here. away from everyone else. it was honestly such a dumb thing to be this mad over, but she remembered hearing that a walk will fix these kinds of moods.

so here she was. again. she wasn't sure if it was helping really, but it kept her from lashing out at the people around her. that were still around her. she stopped herself before she thought about them again.

the trail eventually opened up into a small park. there wasn't much to it really; a gazebo, a small playground, all while the trail continued along before looping back in on itself. this place was super out of the way and didn't really see much attention, especially not with the weather being this chilly. with a sigh, she let herself sprawl on top of one the picnic tables and listened to the cold air flow around her.

the soft winds tickled her ears as she hanged her head over the edge. she knew her anger would be back, but all she felt in this moment was emptiness. she shook her head at herself. "friends." she scoffed. was she mad because they left? or was she mad that they left this place behind before she could?

are you trying to be charitable to them? rye could've asked you to come with, she thought.

i could've just gone with him anyway, she retorted.

still, Fuck him for leaving, after everything that happened?

i don't blame him. there's nothing for any of us here.

so what's stopping you?

she paused. what WAS stopping her? if rye and ocelot could leave this place behind so easily.. then why is it so hard for her? why does it feel so impossible to set out on her own? her thoughts went to her friends.. to patience, niles, and jayde. her parents.

she didn't know what to do.. but what she did know is that she didn't want to be here. she turned herself over and rested her head against her paws. in the distance, past the mountains, she could just barely make out the hazy silhouettes of the distant skyscrapers that made up lux sidera's iconic skyline. as she wondered if she could make it on her own, rye's dumb face flashed in her mind again. he wanted to go out and protect the people who needed saving. and she knew he believed in himself. as for ocelot.. well. anyone with ocelot's smug confidence could go far. she snickered at how much that cat pissed her off sometimes.

she sat up, and decided then and there that she had had enough of her own moping. after all, she could definitely kick both their asses at ONCE. if they were gonna run away, she was gonna go after them. she Refused to be left behind in this nowhere town.

sinclaire pulled out her phone from her sweater pocket and began to look up train tickets. 'look out, you two. look out, WORLD. i'm on my way.'

[theresattrpgforthat]

The computer game Pacific Drive has the player driving a supernatural station wagon and delving ever deeper into an abandoned exclusion zone in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, dodging anomalies, scavenging for resources, exploring, and seeking answers to what events caused the creation of the zone. The game takes heavy inspiration from the art of Simon Stålenhag, which has its on TTRPG in "Tales from the Loop", but can you recommend any other games that would recreate the experience of Pacific Drive?

THEME: Pacific Drive

Hello friend, so I looked up Pacific Drive and one thing that I found out about it was that it was inspired by media such as Annihilation and Roadside Picnic, so first I’m going to send you to my Fucked Up Settings Rec post, especially to the games titled Trespasser and The Zone.

What I’m getting from Pacific Drive is that it’s focused on travel, exploration, an interesting story, the ability to improve the one thing that you survive with, and experiencing a world that fundamentally doesn’t care about you. So let’s see if we have anything that hits any of those tangents.

The Last Caravan, by Ted Bushman.

In this cozy, melancholy post-apocalypse, the aliens came less than a year ago. The war lasted two months, but nobody won. Now, with an alien army rising from the ashes of war, you will have to make a dangerous journey across a shattered North America in search of a new home.

You are normal people finding heroism in extraordinary circumstances. You will explore transformed landscapes, search abandoned towns, discover otherworldly technology, negotiate with newly-formed factions, outrun alien pursuers, and — and all you’ve got is a car, your fellow travelers, and the road.

The Last Caravan combines the survival-horror genre with the fiction-first ethos of Blades in the Dark and No Dice No Masters. Each character has a list of prompts called triggers that reward you with a narrative resource that can open up abilities as you tell your story. The alien apocalypse has come, but the story isn’t over, as a some kind of threat shows signs of growing as you travel across a cold, frozen highway. If you’re interested in The Last Caravan, but missed the Kickstarter, you can check out the Quickstart while you wait for the final release.

24XX-D: Aftertime, by xiombarg.

As a volunteer for the  private paramilitary group Project Aftertime, your health was altered and your brain preserved so you could be revived after society collapsed. 

You awoke in an unfamiliar base filled with unfamiliar technology, with even stranger ultratech outside. 

The Event the wastelanders describe makes no sense. "The gods left us."

I feel like I’m missing something when I look through my folders because the 24XX system feels perfect for these kinds of ‘exclusion zone” games but Aftertime feels the closest to it, and it’s definitely not perfect. There’s too many people milling about, and there seems to be too much pointing towards some kind of answer about the alien event. However, I think in general, 24XX is a great system to root around in if you want to make something for yourself. A lot of these kinds of games have great roll-tables for events, locations, and missions, and inventory (which seems really important in Pacific Drive) is simple to track but absolutely necessary.

Aftertime is different from other 24XX games in that it uses a pool of resources rather than dice rolls to determine what you can or cannot do. You could stick with that, or mash this game together with some other 24XX games like PREDATORS to incorporate dice rolls, and vehicles. What I like about Aftertime is that it includes a base that you can upgrade over time, similar to how your car in Pacific Drive gets better as you find upgrades for it.

Crush Depth Apparition, by amandalee.

February 1902, somewhere on the North Atlantic. Mountainous waves blot out the horizon, and the wind and thunder roar too loud to tell one from the other. But 200 ft down there’s only still cold darkness and the submarine.  

No one has ever dived this deep before, so far from shore and safety. Maybe no one was ever meant to try. The submarine is 170 feet of dripping pipes and fogged up dials, levers rusting stuck in the damp. It was two weeks into the voyage when things started going wrong.  Little accidents, inexplicable mistakes. Someone heard a noise, like tapping, soft against the hull last night. Bright paint flakes off a torpedo and underneath there is a story scratched into the metal. The Captain turns down a hallway that can’t be there,  into pipes and steel and miles of ocean.

The one thing keeping you safe down here has turned into a labyrinth. 

Crush Depth Apparition is an eerie survival horror stand alone adventure zine for 3-5 players and a GM by Amanda Lee Franck. It  includes rules for running and repairing a state of the art (of 120 years ago) experimental submarine, a map of the ocean, an unnatural labyrinth,  ghostly encounters,  hundreds of things that can go wrong, and a crew that depends on you.

Because you are depending on your submarine for survival, much of the focus of this adventure is going to be on keeping it running. You’ll need to manage your fuel levels, the submarine’s battery, and how deep you go, all while trying to find a way home. The setting is very different from Pacific Drive, and I think the horror amps up a little bit because there are more personal details that will likely worm themselves into this game. You’re also less likely to survive the entirety of this game; but the weirdness that happens the further that you adventure may mirror some of the strangeness of Pacific Drive.

ZONE, by Iron Cutler.

ZONE is a genre-agnostic TTRPG , heavily inspired by Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, though adaptable to a wide variety of settings. It is about trespassing in a bizarre and dangerous area—the Zone—and becoming changed by what you find inside.

ZONE is a GM-less ttrpg that uses collaborative worldbuilding to design and deepen the strangeness of the world around you. Each session will contain an expedition of Trespassers, people who enter the Zone without permission, and thus destined to be permanently changed. Your Trespassers will not usually survive from one expedition to the next; this place will change them, and that is why ZONE is described as “un-winnable” by its designer.

Unlike many of the other games on this list, ZONE is very abstract because it doesn’t expect you to succeed. Your characters are destined to fail once they incur too much shock, so managing resources is not really something worth doing in this game. Character creation is also rather simple, and I think that is because the main focus of this game is on the place you are exploring, rather than the character themself. If you want a game about the horror of being changed by something alien and ultimately uncaring about you, I’d recommend ZONE.

RAD, by ¡Hipólita!

We don't know who broke the world, but we know what weapon they used.

In the year 1990, the United States of America fired a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, immediately killing millions and poisoning the land, air and water for years.

The scarce few survivors were forced into hiding. About 50,000 people fled to the relative safety of the Moscow Metro, with smaller numbers following suit in cities like Novosibirsk, Volgograd, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Samara and others.

RAD is a game full of radiation-induced body-horror and all about survival. You have four core stats, and the rest of your character sheet is all about resources and inventory, including three resources called Bedroll, Rations and Battery. The game mechanics are inspired by systems like Mausritter, which means that player creativity and smart item use will take you far. It’s all about a delicate balance of resources, so if that’s what you liked about Pacific Drive, you might want to check out RAD - as well as an adventure for it titled The Technicolor Forest.

Other Games I've Recommended Before

Nibiru, by Araukana Media.

Apocalypse Roadtrip, by Mynar Lenahan.

Roadspire, by Glempy.

[carlos-in-glasses]

Thank you for the tag @sznofthesticks @paperstorm @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad @three-drink-amy @fallout-mars @alrightbuckaroo @orchidscript @thisbuildinghasfeelings @whatsintheboxmh @lemonlyman-dotcom @heartstringsduet 🥰

Chapter 13: The Risk of Love of Where All This Love Comes From will be up on Sunday, and it's a crucial moment for a grieving Carlos...

"I told him I couldn’t do it. He said we’d postpone. He wasn’t going anywhere. We had a moment where we just clung to each other. But then, suddenly, like out of nowhere, I got cold – I was freezing. I started shuddering. It’s like my body was dying. It’s like I was the one who had gone into the frozen lake. I was feeling TK’s hypothermia, and all that pain. TK grabbed me and bundled me up and was rubbing me all over to get me warm–”

“Hey!” O’Brien yells from the driver’s seat, “These are details I don’t need, Officer Reyes.”

“Let him talk,” Owen sighs, and turns to look at Caros properly, “Go on, Carlos.”

Carlos glumly shakes his head, hurt from the abrupt chastisement. Even though they’re in O’Brien’s car and O’Brien is operating the vehicle, Carlos had kind of forgotten he’s here. “TK is my best friend. He’s so amazing.”

O’Brien brakes gently, drawing up to a red light. “Well. I guess it does sound like you’ve got a good one.”

“The best,” Owen says.

“Best in the world,” Carlos cries, catching a tear on his tissue. “I don’t deserve him.”

Owen turns around, sits back in his seat and watches the road. “Let’s have a drink at mine before I run you home.”

Carlos goes quiet, stares out of the window. A scrubby grass strip divides the highway. Trucks with orange clearance lights pass, thick wheels four-feet tall. Number plates from Mississippi, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona. Tall billboards advertise attorneys in business suits, arms folded, grinning with white teeth – get cash for your car wreck, for your injury. Gabriel had suggested to Carlos a few times that he become a lawyer instead of a cop. He had the brain for it, the grades, the interest. Things would be so different if he’d taken that path. Gabriel still would have died, but he wouldn’t have met TK.

Buttercup meets them at the door when Owen opens up. He whines, ignores Owen and circles Carlos, as if trying to find the place where his love and concern for him begins and ends, but really it’s an eternal loop, because he is a dog. Carlos crouches and fusses Buttercup, who puts his front paws on Carlos’ thighs and tries to get into his lap, pushing him onto his ass on the floor – and Carlos finds himself taking the load of all fifty-two kilos of Bernese Mountain dog. Owen gives Buttercup a stroke behind the ears and then wanders off to the kitchen without saying anything, just lets man and dog have their moment. He selects for himself a glass bottle of sparkling water, and looks at the photos of TK stuck to the side of the fridge. Baby – child – teen – adult. The greatest love of Owen's life, and Carlos’ too.

Open tag and tags below

@liminalmemories21 @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @strandnreyes @welcometololaland @rmd-writes @wandering-night19 @reyesstrand @herefortarlos @fitzherbertssmolder @my-little-tilly @ladytessa74 @reasonandfaithinharmony @redshirt2 @carlos-tk @louis-ii-reyes-strand @freneticfloetry @ambiguouspenny @goodways @bonheur-cafe @lightningboltreader @noxsoulmate @inkweedandlizards @jesuisici33 @theghostofashton @chicgeekgirl89 @sanjuwrites @never-blooms

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

dream 1) Slimbo picked me up from the thrift store in winter when we saw a rainbow at sunset on the side of a tall mountain. We drove towards the end of the rainbow and the car got stuck between some huge boulders but we were able to escape. I said OK no more mountain rainbows.

dream 2) Slimbo was driving me along this winding highway of loop-de-loops floating in midair w tons of others cars, around the same time we all started falling off the road into a giant ocean. the cars were retrieved onto a huge rescue ship but the ship was unable to move. in front of the ship were lines of people standing on a narrow stretch of floating metal, waiting. We walked past them all until we reached where the line ended. there was a patch of ocean meeting the land which we decided to risk swimming. The water was very calm & clear & it was so easy. When we reached land we waved down Thaiboy Digital who was on a boat. We paid him money to retrieve the car, which he did, then we all had dinner togehter & laughed & smiled

dream 3) i was with my ex from 10+ years ago watching videos we took during the time i was living in London. id never seen the videos before but they were artistically documenting my old self. i thought i looked beautiful. Then i was sort of living in the videos. We were at some kind of canal partying with a bunch of people i used to know. One of them jumped in the water and handed me a penny. It had a red heart on it & the date 11/11/2011

Oh And All these dreams had some kind of dress-to-impress sequence in them.

[cedarboughs]

Hiking Journal

November 11 — Raven’s End

Yamnuska — Îyâmnathka, “flat-faced mountain” in Nakoda — has got to be one of the most iconic mountains in the Rockies. It’s known as a sacred mountain which watches over a rich medicine foraging plain. Heading into the Bow Valley it’s basically the first rock of the Rockies, watching over the wide valley through which the river, railway, new highway, and old road wind in parallel.

It was grey and overcast in that November way on this Remembrance Day, but pleasantly warm for the season, rising to a high of 11° if I remember. The plan had been at some point to do a hike with work friends but they called it in so I drove out on my own, listening to The Apache Relay and a podcast about Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha as I left the city and rolled over the foothills (I’d just finished reading it, was pretty good.) Speaking of books, that’s why Raven’s End, the eastern buttress of Yamnuska’s great cliff, lives rent-free in my head.

See, Ben Gadd is a legend. Most of the times in the last thirty years that anyone has looked up an animal, plant, mushroom, or geological formation in the Rockies, it’s probably been in Gadd’s practically biblical Handbook of the Canadian Rockies. In his full page entry on corvus corax he makes it pretty clear what his favourite clever local bird species is. If there was any further question, he also wrote Raven’s End, sort of the Albertan answer to Watership Down. I don’t know if the novel is named after the buttress or if the book named the buttress. The book was published in 2001, and I haven’t figured out if the name was used to refer to the spot on the mountain before then or if Gadd named it.

Anyway, I read this book a half-dozen times growing up. In the story, a raven wakes up with from a fall into a bush at the base of Yamnuska’s cliff with no memory aside from his name, Colin. He falls in with Zack and Molly and all the other ravens of the Raven’s End flock. He speaks with the animals of the valley, wonders about the strange two-legged visitors, and hears the voice of the wind, leading to an adventure rooted equally in spirituality and magic and in the ecology of the mountains. I can’t spoil what he does discover about his history. Go pick up a copy and find out.

Most of the trail up to Raven’s End is pretty gradual and easy. Being a public holiday, it was super busy as well. Families with a half-dozen young children, couples with two or three dogs. I had bear spray and layers and food, as if I was ready for a proper backcountry walk, but it was more bustling than most downtown streets. Little grew in the late autumn, but plenty of red wild rose hips stood out at the tips of thorny shrubs. I did chew one. Don’t tell Parks. A couple sat on the bluffs overlooking the wide reserve land in the rolling hills below and eastward, performing a ceremony with a tobacco pipe and shakers. I heard their singing washing over the woods before I actually saw them as I walked past and shared a nod.

Treeless montane aspen gave way to subalpine firs. The ground changed from dissolving brown leaves to red needle duff. A little bit of snow stuck to the ground at the elevation of Raven’s End itself, very thin and packed down, no obstacle of any sort, just a reminder that winter was near. Arguably here, but I don’t feel like arguing. More importantly: I did, in fact, see the ravens!

The start of the cliff is the usual and my planned turnaround point, but as i ate my human sandwich sitting on a rock, a group of church ladies chatting with me said that it was as worth at least going through the first slim crack of the scrambly section for the view beyond. I love climbing through cracks and dramatic rocks like this, so they were totally right.

Beyond the chimney you can look down to CMC Valley (I don’t know what this stands for, but it’s the valley behind Yamnuska; I may do that loop sometime) and, right to left, the twin peaks of Mount Wendell and the more westerly Morrowmount. Yes I switched the usual reading direction to end with MORROWMOUNT, because it sounds like something out of a fantasy novel.

Looking up at the backside of Yamnuska it look easy enough to scramble the route, it’s popular to scramble, and I do really want to do that, but not in the snow, not alone, not with a warm but forceful Chinook wind blasting from the west, and not with the last interpretive sign mentioning risk of death three times on the one sign. I turned around and descended, plunge-running past the kids and dogs back to the car and home.

[katblu42]

Day 16

With huge apologies for getting way behind again! This was another touring day, this time from Banff to Calgary.

First official stop (after a bonus stop at the Cascade Gardens that I visited yesterday) was a ride up the Sulphur Mountain gondola for some beautiful views over Banff.

There is smoke haze on the horizon from forest fires in BC.

A bunch of people on my tour stayed in that huge hotel last night - the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, just in front of Bow Falls.

Speaking of the falls, that was our next stop and we arrived just as a rafting group was setting of down the rapids.

(Adore those water colours!)

We took a drive around to Surprise Corner for views across the river (and the falls) back towards the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Then a lengthy lunch stop in Banff before getting back on the bus for a drive around the Lake Minnewanka Loop road. (Sorry about the UFOs and reflections off the bus windows in some photos.)

And from there it was all highway to Calgary.

I only had the one afternoon to spend in Calgary, so I did the 5 block walk to the Calgary Tower, stopping in front of the Bow Building for this sculpture.

The curvy glass building on the right is the Bow building. The face statue is hidden behind the Hyat's blue roof. The flat brick coloured rectangle building to the right of the Bow is where I stayed.

Lots of smoke haze on the horizon, but you can see the tower for the ski jump events from the 1988 Winter Olympics!

View to the Saddledome and Stampede Park, home of the annual Calgary Stampede (rodeo, exhibition, festival), which had been held a few weeks before.

The Bow River with the Calgary Zoo on the far bank, and Fort Calgary on the near one.

Such a short time to explore here! And if I can, I'd like to come back for the Stampede one day!

[makutaservaela]

Timeline, Part 4

Lariska’s old gang of thieves steal a skiff from the Dark Hunters and find their way to The Other Side. They are captured by Dark Hunters as the Hunters commandeer the skiff and land it on the shore, but are freed by Zaani, Sama, Zaraki, and Baina, who had broken into the skiff out of curiosity. The kids bring the Vortixx to Lariska, who is shocked.

Lariska and Brutaka discuss the idea of her going with her thief friends on their adventure to locate Kimuri.

Fenrakk grows desperate at the lack of other dragons. Vezon and Tagon ride her as she explores the mountain range. As they enter the airspace over Kimuri, Tagon disables and falls, and Vezon doesn’t notice until it’s too late. He attempts to get Fenrakk to turn around, but she throws him off, and he falls in a pond.

Tagon’s mask is found by Avillus. She, half-disabled and fully unstable, panics, fuses herself to his chestplate, and curses his sonic powers to increase 10x, causing everything within a range of him to shatter when he activates them. He has no clue, and intrigued by the new “vision” his greater range now gives him, goes exploring, unintentionally shattering everything around him.

Servaela notices the shatter path and decides to investigate.

Vezon wipes out a Ga-Hungan village for his own amusement (unaware of what they are), and then notices Servaela in the distance. He breaks into the Hungan Great Temple and is apprehended. While on transport to the Hungan city, he ponders beheading the leader and declaring himself the Warlord. He recalls Servaela, and ponders taking her antidermis to use in enslaving the Hungans.

Avillus’ shatter path breaks Vezon’s transport vehicle, and he hides with a cloak and escapes.

Lewa, Tanma, and Vhisola approach Solek about her obviously growing baby bump. After misunderstanding Lewa’s teasing about what “Kopaka would think” (referring to her finding a new man), Solek presumes he knows it is Kopaka’s kid, and confesses. The three agree to keep it a secret, as Kopaka is obviously not currently in a state to deal with this.

Pohatu is testing out his new powers in the Phantoms’ base. He enters Kopaka’s dreams with Raia and realises that something else is there. Kopaka introduces him to the Spirit of Ice Kanohi, whom he has been naming “Kovohki”. Kovohki panics and forces Kopaka to wake up. Pohatu escapes the Phantoms’ base and sets out to find Kopaka. He is noticed by Lewa, Tanma, and Photok, who capture him and demand he tell them where he’s been. Pohatu explains he is here to help Kopaka, and Lewa identifies the asylum Kopaka is kept in as one in Onu-Mata. They agree that the Toa Nuva should meet up there in secret, and Photok and Tanma should gather the Toa Nuva there and keep everyone else’s suspicions down until the Toa Nuva can figure out how to proceed.

The Toa Nuva and Pohanu gather in Onu-Mata. Pohatu explains the situation with him, the Phantoms, Kopaka, and Kovohki. Pohatu then telepathically connects to Kopaka and realises that Kovohki is in Kopaka because her host mask was broken. He has the Toa Nuva obtain a spare mask for her to possess, and forces her into it. She grants herself a body, and Pohatu explains that she was afraid the Toa would destroy her after she witnessed them fight the Frost Wolves and the Queen of Ice. Onua promises that if she is not a threat to the innocent, they are not a threat to her.

The Toa Nuva agree to help find Kovohki’s home to make it safe so she can return. Pohatu tells the Toa how the Phantoms are hunting him, and that he will go into hiding until they are ready. They should speak to Sahmad when they are ready to go. Kopaka takes Kovohki to the Ice Realm so she can restore her energy among the ice elementals. Gali sets out to gather Takanuva and direct Hahli to speak to Sahmad, per Pohatu’s guidance. Pohanu enforces that Krika is kept out of the loop about this, due to his mistrust of her. 

Hahli has a talk with Baina and Zaraki about supervising the river highway in her absence, to keep them occupied, and assures Jaller that she will be back once she is assured this situation with Pohatu is handled. She stays in Pohatu’s hiding place with him to protect him.

The Toa Nuva set out on their mission, and Hahli returns home. Krika had found out, and berates them for the harm in which Gali could find herself, and Onua rants about “Takamahri”. Pohatu soothes the group by noting that this didn’t have to be a Toa Nuva mission- it could have gone to a younger Toa group, or Pohatu and Kopaka could have done it themselves, but that Pohatu had specifically asked for the Toa Nuva because he misses them.

The Toa Nuva continue their mission and find Bohrok tunnels that lead under the mountain range. They enter and follow the tunnels.

The tunnels lead the Toa Nuva to a set of great rooms, presumably an old Great Being lab. They come across a fast flowing river, and discuss how to travel it. While the others look for things with which to make a boat, Kovohki repeatedly tries to freeze over the river, ignoring Kopaka’s protests. She becomes frustrated that he “doesn’t have faith in her abilities” and creates a massive iceblock, successfully stopping the river. However, the block shoves against the tunnel walls and severely weakens the integrity of the tunnel. Part of the tunnel caves in on Kovohki, Kopaka, and Onua (who had jumped down to save them from the cave-in). Pohatu sets to work strengthening the stone walls, but the ice is pushing back too much. Gali climbs on the fallen rocks and reaches out to the water beyond the ice, summoning it to break through the ice. Takanuva tries to pull her away in time, but the oncoming wave washes both of them out, and Takanuva is hit by a rock and loses conscious.

The Toa panic about how to get to Gali and Takanuva. Eventually they settle on individual powers- Pohatu runs on the riverbed, Lewa flies over it, Onua swims with his Pakari to assist him, Kopaka convinces Kovohki to diffuse her body so he can carry her mask and surf, likening the surfing to snowboarding.

Gali pulls Takanuva from the water, but her heart is overwhelmed and he’s swallowed too much water. Rather than letting her heart rest, she uses her powers to draw the water from his lungs, and then she collapses. He panics, not knowing how to help her. The other Toa arrive, and Onua administers his own heart medication to her, before finding that she has her medicine with her. Takanuva breaks down about how she had almost died because he didn’t know how to help her, and Onua shows him how to use an inhaler for Onua and Lewa. Lewa is shocked that Onua knows his dosage, and Onua responds, “Our strength rests in knowing our brothers’ weaknesses.” He offers for Kopaka to share his own physical maladies, and Kopaka remains silent.

Kopaka notices a dock down the tunnel, and Onua and Pohatu decide to carve a pathway from their current rock standing point to the land of the dock.

Radiak points out how it’s not fair that Gorast outranks him, as he earned his position through loyalty to Antroz, and Gorast has only been loyal since he gained kingship. Mutran suggests a summit should be gathered to decide on Makuta leadership. All Makuta save for Miserix (who doesn’t care), and Servaela (who cannot be found) are gathered, including Zaktan. Zaktan notes he has been studying the Mayeka, as its death power is by the entity, not by the life force, so it struggles to kill him and his protodites quickly.

[gravelish]

Snoqualmie Pass

2 July 2023

Today’s ride might have just been a simple 40-mile out and back, but I decided to throw in an additional loop that added 20 miles, including the only really hard climb of the day. I parked at Rattlesnake Lake/Cedar Falls and began pedaling around 8:00. I was back to the car by 2:30 and back to Seattle by 4:00, with a stop for a burger and a shake in North Bend.

It’s 20 miles of easy railroad grade to the summit at Hyak, including the 2-mile tunnel at the top. I considered turning around and heading back, but opted instead to check out a new route (for me) around Lake Kacheelus to the east. I crossed I-90 to Gold Creek and then followed Forest Road 8432, which parallels (sort of) the interstate on the hillside north of the lake. It climbs steeply almost 1000’ toward the trailhead for Margaret and Lillian Lakes before eventually descending back down to the paved Kachess Lake Road. Then it’s back across the Interstate and a mile or so on the Stampede Pass Road before returning to the rail trail (10 miles east of Hyak).

Hyak was busy with families out walking or biking, many to the tunnel. The final 20-mile ride down from the pass was fast — 15-20 mph all the way on a gentle downhill grade on good dirt and gravel. There were plenty of other cyclists and hikers, but they were spread out and most of the time it was very quiet. There were the usual clusters of climbers on the cliffs at the trestles above Exit 38. The parking lot at the bottom had been pretty quiet in the morning, but cars were parked on the road for half a mile when I headed out (mainly for the lake and the hike to Rattlesnake Ledge, not for the rail trail).

This ride is a great reminder of now nice it is that the I-90 corridor has been kept fairly free from large scale development (Mountain to Sounds Greenway). The highway is never out of earshot, but it’s usually out of sight. It’s not wilderness, but it’s not bad, especially for being an hour from downtown.

I talked to a young guy at the bottom with a loaded bike. Turns out he was five days from La Push and eight weeks from his home in New York State. I always find it inspirational to chat with folks doing these long rides! It’s also a reminder that today’s ride was on the Great American Rail Trail, a somewhat aspirational concept since large segments remain incomplete or at least hard to ride, but the basic idea is that if you want to ride from coast to coast, this isn’t a bad route to take.

[gordonhasthoughts]

Like the other two loops, the Roslyn Loop (RosLoop) was built during the scientific boom of the 1970s. It brought a huge influx of workers to the previous mining town to build, then staff the particle collider for specific research. Roslyn was chosen for a few reasons. Washington was no stranger to cutting edge nuclear research, and many of the scientists that had been working at the Hanford Site moved to this installation as a career opportunity. 

Furthermore, the already hollow ground of the Coal mines provided an easy opportunity for a number of booster rings to be constructed for the high energy research needed. 

The influx of the scientists brought a want to make families. Some families had already lived in Roslyn before the loop, now they are about equal in number. 

Roslyn is also interesting given its distance from both a major Magnetrine Highway, as well as the cascade mountains and greater forest area. 

The city is just over a mile in diameter, with the loop sitting just northwest of the town’s edge, making it great to access many of the amenities by bike, or even by foot. 

The summers are warm, but not hot, and many Kids on break will bike to the local town of Cle Elum, just a 15 minute ride down the coal mine trail, right on the yakima river to swim and play on the rocky shores. 

Adults will most likely be found at 'The Brick' or 'Mako’s Place' for drinks on off hours, or bumming around the Northwest Improvement Co. general goods store.

Also in town is a newly opened video and home computing equipment retailer named CompuTech in response to the growing demand from the tech-savvy scientists. This also was coupled with the opening of Silver Rocket Electronics consignment for various second hand oscilloscopes and other test equipment, but sometimes through the rubble extraordinary things could be found. Also downtown is Basecamp Books, a bookstore. There is a small medical clinic downtown, but more serious injuries may need to be treated at the Cle Elum Hospital 20 minutes bike, 5 mins car ride away.

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mystery ideas:

A kid wakes up, he was in a coma for 8 years but hasnt aged a day

Rogue robot is destroying crops between cle elum and roslyn 

In the back of the Silver Rocket, you find

A watch that counts backwards

2. A strange blinking device that freezes time while you are touching it 

3. A tv screen that displays impossible footage from the past 

For some reason, all the fridges in town stop working 

You find a rock on the beach. When you take it home, the radio, microwave, and tv all start malfunctioning. Your parents blame you for it.