RE: Highway 101 North of Seaside OR and Astoria WA
On Google maps you can zoom in and see all the curves and hills (terrain mode). You can also 'drive' it with their streetview. Activate 'user photos' for additional views along the way.
If you want a lot of ocean views, you'll need to take some detours off 101. For example, you could drive up and back on 103 to see beaches in the Long Beach area. 105 takes you over to Westport, 109 takes you to Pacific Beach, 110 to La Push, and 112 to Neah Bay. There are side trips in the other direction into the Olympic Nat Forest and Nat Park. In between you'll see lots, and lots of trees.
RE: Snoqualmie Pass, WA
In the convergence zone north of Seattle, there was a thunderstorm with small hail this evening. One local scientist/blogger used the term 'thundersnow'. And a Pineapple Express on its way, currently aimed at Vancouver Island and the North Cascades.
RE: What The Best Overall Knife To Use.
Kuhn Rikon has some 'nonstick' knives that come with plastic sheaths. The brightly colored coating on the blades does not make much difference to me, but the sheath is a big plus when tent camping. The blades are thin, very sharp, Japanese style. They are $20 or less; even less at TJMaxx.
I also like their 'swiss sandwich knife', which is a 4" cross between a paring knife and bread knife - serrated with rounded tip.
Folding fishing fillet knife is another handy camping design - a long blade in a same, compact package.
RE: Road Atlas
... Nothing like the GPS for local travel, though - finds shortcuts I never could find with an Atlas. ....
and sometimes those short cuts aren't worth taking.
I was driving US2 across eastern Washington. Upon entering the small town of Waterville, the highway signs pointed left, the GPS said to go straight. Out of curiosity I followed the GPS. The road passed through a couple of residential blocks, and then turned gravel, then dirt, then two track, and finally forded a stream before rejoining the highway on the other side of town. That shortcut could have been disastrous with a different vehicle and different weather!
RE: Southern CA -> Bend, OR -> Seattle, WA in December
While it is good to prepare for winter snow and ice, don't forget the tule fogs in the Central Valley. I've seen a claim (unattributed) that they are the leading cause of weather related accidents in California.
RE: Southern CA -> Bend, OR -> Seattle, WA in December
Now is a good time to look at the Oregon and Washington DOT sites and webcams. We just a a major fall storm blow through. US97 is dry in Oregon, but some of the Cascade passes have some snow. US97 and I90 are wet but clear in Washington. US2, a bit further north and higher, has snow on the roadway.
RE: Southern CA -> Bend, OR -> Seattle, WA in December
US97, for nearly all of its length, is traveling on the dry side of the Cascade Mtns. Most of the Oregon stretch is on the edge of 'high desert', in the 3-5000' range. So while it can be cold, it does not get as much snow as the mountains, and less of the freezing rain than can plague the Portland area at times. In southern Oregon it is passing through Ponderosa Pine forests, somewhat like Southern California mountains, but much flatter. North of Bend it is sagebrush country.
At the Columbia River the highway drops down to nearly sealevel. In Washington it climbs to a modest pass, drops back down to orchard country, another ridge, and then meets I90. I90 is the major EW route into Seattle, so WSDOT puts every effort into keeping it open and safe.
RE: Phoenix to Oregon
You are talking about the Brookings area of the south Oregon coast, right?
There have been lots of threads about driving 101, and crossing to and from it.
Hwy 20 past Clear Lake is the most recommended way of crossing from I5 to 101 in the south. 299 and 36 are very windy and generally disliked by RV drivers.
Another option is I5 into Oregon, and US199 to Crescent City. Further north Or 42 is a perfectly good way of crossing from I5 to 101.
RE: Rock slide closes I-40 at the NC/TN state line.
Here's an article that gets into both the geology and politics of the I40 route
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20091101/NEWS01/911010355&theme=ROCKSLIDE
RE: Routes From Kelowna BC to Yuma AZ
Google Maps gives 3 suggestions. The 'fastest', though not shortest, is using I5 (though this time could vary with rush hour traffic through cites like LA). Next is this US395, I90, I15 route. The shortest is the I84 through Oregon and Idaho to I15 route. But this involves more distance on state highways such as WA17.
I like Google Maps because it is easy to play with different routes. For example you could take I84 to US93, and take that south through Nevada. You can also zoom in on the route to get an idea of how curvy or mountainous a section is. They now have 'street views' of most major highways in the US, so it is possible 'drive' the whole route from home.
RE: Hovenweep
There's a paved county road from Cortez (CO) (just north of the airport) to Aneth (262). There's a turn off to Hovenweep shortly after it enters Utah.
RE: US 14/16 Cody,WY to W. Yellowstone thru Sylvan Pass
Early June 2008 was unusually cold throughout out these states. A major state park in Idaho had to cancel all of its Memorial Day reservations because snow was still on the ground. We encountered snow flurries at Lost Trail Pass between Idaho and Montana around the beginning of June, and snow on some low Washington passes a week later (probably the same June 8 storm). 2009 was considerably warmer.
RE: Oregon Coast
Though winter often feels like a repeated cycle of 3 days of rain, followed by two with dry clouds. The rain usually is the light, all day stuff.
It is possible to hit week long periods of sunshine, and winter storms that feel like a tropical hose has been pointed straight at the coast. On coast itself, snow is rare, but not unheard off.
RE: Oregon Coast
There aren't many National Forest campgrounds right on the coast. Off hand I can only think of one, near Cape Perpetua, OR. There are more a bit inland, in the coast mountains. Some are basic, on gravel roads, others quite nice (for example inland from Gold Beach, OR, on the Rogue River. Finding information on them takes more digging than for the state parks. I start with FS district web pages. How those pages are organized varies with district.
RE: Oregon Coast
There have been a lot of threads about driving the California coast, but it seems that the two easiest routes are:
- CA20 past Clearlake. This puts you onto 101 just south of the main Redwoods area.
- US199 from Grants Pass to Crescent City. This puts you at the northern end of the California Redwoods.
I haven't driven 299 or 36, but many posters have reservations about them, especially with larger RVs.
RE: Vancouver Summer Trip
One loop out of Vancouver, is to go north on 99 (Sea to Sky) to Whistler and on to Lillooet. Then east to Kamloops and north to Wells Gray. An alternative on this leg is to go north to Green Lake Prov Park, and east to Little Fort.
Then 5 (Yellowhead) to Robson Prov. Park. Then on to Jasper NP, and south on the Icefields Parkway to Lake Louise. Return to BC in Yoho NP, and continue on the Transcanada through Glacier NP (the Canadian one, not the US). Continue with the Transcanada back through Kamloops, and then south along the Frasier Gorge to Hope and Vancouver. An alternative from Kamloops is the freeway 5 through Merrit.
I suspect that a loop like this appears in one or more German guidebooks, since I've seen an abundance of rental RVs along these highways. The Wells Gray area seems particularly popular with these tourists, but less well known to Canadians and Americans.
The route isn't for people who are afraid of mountains. The 'Duffy Lake' portion of the Whistler to Lillooet has some steep grades and narrow bridges. The drop down to Little Fort from the west is also steep. Wells Gray has a bit of a climb to the area where the biggest waterfalls are, and another 10% grade on the gravel drive north to Clearwater Lake. But there is a lot of good scenery along the loop. You also get to see a good cross section of BC, from the coastal mountains and old forests, to dry interior valleys, and the Rockies.
I like to use the Moon Handbook for BC. For more detail I use the Backroads Mapbooks. I also stop at visitor centers, including one in the town of Clearwater, just before heading north into Wells Gray.
For camping, I usually use provincial parks. Usually the sites have large level gravel pads, and good separation. Clean pit toilets or flush ones with showers are normal. Many have good hiking options. Wells Gray is particularly good for hiking, as is Mt Robson. If you need utilities, look at private campgrounds. There are also forest service 'rec sites'. Some of these are comparable to the parks, others are 'user maintained' cow pastures.
You can find most of what you need to know about provincial parks online, including maps.
RE: Global warming in Wyoming
And for this weekend, they are predicting (for Casper) a low of 42 Saturday night, and high of 72 for Sunday. Amazing how the weather changes from one week to the next. :)
RE: Other interesting Vehicles seen in Canada
In 1988 I crossed the Arctic Circle with a Mountie who was on his way to a posting in Inuvik. He and his family were traveling in a pickup camper. My photos aren't clear enough to check whether the truck had official markings or not.
On the return leg we traveled with a bunch of small Fiats with roof top tents. Apparently one group of Italians had driven them north, and another was making the return trip to Vancouver. At one campground there was a bus with a multiple roof top tents. I think it was a German group.
On my last vacation, the neighboring couple at Tunnel Mtn (Banff) were Australians on a 3mth tour of BC, Alaska, and Alberta. They had bought a used minivan, and were camping in that. They had driven the Dempster as far as Tombstone. After Banff they were planning on spending the last month on Vancouver Island.
RE: Day trip: Moab to Mesa Verde
Something along the same line as Mesa Verde, but closer to Moab is Hovenweep. It has ruins from the same (or similar) culture, but on a 'small town' scale. There isn't the wow factor of buildings in inaccessible caves way down the cliff face. Instead you walk among the buildings located at the head of small ravines.
Hovenweep thread
RE: Global warming in Wyoming
For many of us, global warming may be experienced as a shift in a gardener's climate zone. Thus for someone in Arizona, it could a shift from high desert to middle or low. For example it could mean a reduction in the number of nights with frost (average, of course, over a number of years). Or a change in the length of fire season in the surrounding mountains. Or a change in the length of the snowbird season (earlier migration back to Montana in the spring).
http://www.weather.gov/climate/l3mto.php
is the National Weather Service Temperature Outlook for the next 3 months. Montana and Arizona have the highest probability of above normal temperatures.
Here's an interesting indicator of climate for Tucson - the 1st 100deg day of the year. The long term average is May 26, in 2009 it was May 7.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/twc/climate/1st100plot_tus.php
is a plot, with some averaging. There is a lot of variability from year to year, but the recent 10yr averages are earlier than any other in this past century.
Average 1st freeze for Tucson is Nov 24; it was Dec 21 in 2008. Last freeze was Feb 14, earlier than the normal of Mar 4. Overall the 2008-9 winter appears to have been warmer than normal.
