Seattle & Mt Rainier April 2010

I was in Seattle to present a paper at the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies Conference, which I have written up in my Library Blog. I love Seattle. This was a new experience for me, using public transportation and walking a lot. I took a $2.50 light rail train from the airport to downtown Seattle. My cheaper hotel was about a mile from the conference hotel, so I walked that distance at least twice a day. Seattle is hilly, though I did learn to navigate on less inclined streets. Sessions were held in the Crown Plaza (6^th St. – top of hill), as well as the Seattle Public Library (between 4^th & 5^th, mid hill), and the Seattle Art Museum(1^st, bottom of hill). I heard that local people use escalators within buildings to get up the hills – but you need to know where to go. I took the bus to the University of Washington one afternoon and was impressed with the hybrid buses, plus they had bike racks on the front of them. There are lots of people on bikes in Seattle. There is a downtown transit tunnel that has the light rail and buses going through it, keeping away from other traffic. It is a gorgeous tunnel. High ceilings, art deco lighting, interesting varied granite (and probably other rock) tiles covering the floors, walls and ceilings. Decorative textured tiles. Murals. There is a certain area within downtown, were public transportation is free, but I didn’t figure all that out.

It was spring and everything was in bloom, but since it is such a temperate and rainy climate, things grow well. In Denny park across the street from my hotel, there were huge rhododendron bushes and pieris japonica – one of my favorites for some strange reason. There were chestnut trees blooming on one street, and trees and plantings throughout the city. There are also a lot of public sculptures and fountains everywhere.

On my last day I had planned to meet some old roommates, but when those plans fell through, I rented a car and drove up to Mt.Rainier National Park. What a perfect choice. It was National Park Week, and entrance to the park was free. The day was sunny and clear, so the mountain could be seen in all of its majesty from all angles. Mt.Rainier was just amazing. You can see it from Seattle, so it would be like if there was a mountain in Lansing, and we could see it clearly from Kalamazoo. I was blown away, every time I turned a corner and could see it rising up above the trees. I was very aware how rarely it is clear enough to see it this well. I took many pictures, and you can see how the clouds would come and drift around it.

I drove up to Paradise and the visitor center there – one of the snowiest places in the US. Their average snowfall is around 700” per season, record around 1100”. (Just for comparison, the record for Keweenaw Peninsula in the UP is 390”.) They keep the roads plowed up to Paradise all winter. They close the road for some hours during the night, so the snowplows can plow downhill – to get enough momentum to plow through the heavy snow. On April 25, there were still 12 foot drifts of snow up there. The other roads in the park won’t open till May; one of them only opens in July. At Paradise I met three mountain climbers putting away their gear. They hadn’t made it to the top, because the weather had gotten bad, but had enjoyed their two days on the mountain. The three friends hailed from VA, WI and NH.

Before I got to the really mountainous region, I loved the light greens of spring leaves contrasting with the dark green of evergreens. Up in the mountains there were few deciduous trees, but a majestic old growth forest of hemlock, pine, cedar and alders. I took the interpretive walk at Longmire, a historical health spa. You can still see the mineral springs bubbling up throughout the valley. There was something magical about this old growth forest, where I felt so small and young – my personal Avatar experience. I was fascinated by the bright yellow, calla lily type flowers growing in the marsh that turned out to be skunk cabbages.

The other fascinating thing was the riverbeds. The Nisqually River flows out of the Nisqually glacier. The river itself was more like a stream, maybe 20 feet across at the most that I saw. But the riverbed is 10 times that size, strewn full of stones, boulders and fallen trees. At times they get these huge mudslides that just wipe everything in their path, including the park roads.

I also saw a gray fox on the road with a fluffy white-tipped tail, a bright blue bird that I believe was a Stellar Jay and a herd of Elk on the way down. What a glorious day!

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