devil| This is a photo essay of a road trip I took in mid March to the area around Darrington in the Cascade mountains in Western Washington, U.S.A. on my VX-800 motorcycle. I go often to this area for hiking and climbing. It has quite a bit of rough country that, while accessible relatively speaking, is not well traveled. | |
wait a sec, is that snow? |
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The area is less than two hours from Seattle, going North
on I-5 and then taking the exit for Darrington. The country is
very steep, and while the roads that these pictures were taken
on never get past 2500 feet above sea level, the mountainous
nature can make it rough going even at these lower elevations,
and snow accumulations can be surprising. Road quality isn't that great. A mile or two outside of Darrington, I turn onto dirt roads; the road into the Clear Creek drainage goes approximately 10 miles. The quality degrades from a fairly decent dirt road into a 4 wheel drive track; how quickly this occurs depends on how rough the winter is and what time of the year it is. If you didn't turn off onto the Clear Creek spur, you'd eventually complete a loop to Granite Falls, which you can also probably locate on the map; this is a fairly nice ride, although up around Monte Christo it does turn into a one lane dirt track for a short while. |
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three views from the Helena Peak/Blueberry Hill area into the Windy Pass/Bear Mountain area |
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3 O'Clock Wash |
What's so special about it? Oh, I don't know. The water's really nice and cold and fresh. The rushing water creates this stream of cold air that washes over the road and it just feels really good to stand in it.
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looking up 3 O'Clock Wash |
I probed on up the road past the approach to 3 O'Clock Rock, towards Bear Mountain. I turned the corner, but then I encountered a tree across the road that I couldn't get under or over.
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a closer approach to Bear Mountain |
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look at that rock! |
Wow, look at that rock. To think that there's a 1500 foot high buttress that you can't even see in these pictures...
rev. date: 12-Mar-2008
rev. by: Fred Morris
These three pictures were taken a short
stroll up into the snow from where the bike is parked in the
first picture. We've gone off on the left-hand spur; the right-hand
spur of the road goes into the slot "over there". Rough
country, huh?
The left-hand spur eventually terminates
at a place called Deer Pass; down the other side of Deer Pass
you end up at Silverton which is on the Granite Pass/Monte Christo
road. Where I've taken these pictures is farther up the road
than the granite finger that forms the entrance to the Blueberry
Hill climbing area. The right-hand spur goes by the 3 O'Clock
Rock climbing area and then back towards that mountain you can
see in the background. That mountain's called Bear Mountain,
and the buttress at the bottom of it is called The Green Giant.
