I spend Night 2 of my trip in one of two great sites along the American River.
• Red Top Lookout
• American River Campsite
• Mt Rainier and the Buck Creek Campsite
• A Driving Day with a Crappy Campsite
• The Blacksmithing Weekend
• Dungeness Recreation Area
I had errands to run on Wednesday that were along my intended route and they wound up taking up most of the day.
Gallery One
Gallery One in Ellensburg is one of the three art galleries where I currently sell my jewelry. It had taken a bit of effort to break in — they weren’t interested in the wire framed jewelry I was making two years ago. But when I did get them to show my jewelry, they started selling it quickly. Since then, they’ve asked for more.
COVID-19 hit the gallery and its artists hard. They were shut down for quite a while and only recently opened up. In the meantime, they decided to dive into the world of online sales. They struggled a bit in the beginning — they had two separate inventory systems and it was difficult to keep track of what was available and what had been sold. But they recently got set up with a new system and a person whose job it was to maintain the shop. They sent out an email to all their artists, asking them to send new items as soon as possible.
Since I was going to be in the area anyway, I stopped by with my inventory, which fits in a number of cases in a carry bag. To my surprise, the store manager was there! To my bigger surprise, she wanted me to leave her 15 to 20 pendants.
I balked. Unfortunately, Gallery One sells my work on consignment. They take a whopping 40% commission. Leaving them 20 pieces of my work means I have 20 fewer pieces in inventory that I can sell and get full price for. I have to hope that they can sell those 20 pieces and be satisfied with what I get. Needless to say, this is not a good deal for me if I continue to sell at shows and on Etsy, especially if they don’t sell at all.
She must have realized that all this was going through my head when I didn’t answer enthusiastically right away. I told her I had a show in Leavenworth in the beginning of October. She told me that she could wait until after that — as long as it was in the beginning of the month. (It is.) In the meantime, I gave her eight pairs of earrings that I know she’ll be able to sell quickly. I have a ton of earrings in inventory.
Crab tater tots. Yes, they tasted as good as they looked.
Afterward, I went next door to the Pearl Bar and Grill for lunch. It was the first time I’d eaten inside a restaurant since my trip to Oregon in May.
The Lance Dealer
Since my intended route had me going very close to Yakima and my camper stove was on the fritz, I decided to stop at the Lance dealer to see if they could give me a quick fix. The problem was minor — the sparker for one of the burners wasn’t working right and I had to use a lighter to get it going. I’d bought the camper there and since they’re apparently one of the best selling Lance dealers in the country — who knew? — I figured that if anyone could troubleshoot it, it would be them.
The mechanic was busy with something else, but told me what to look at. Then one of the owners, Mike, got involved. Soon he saw that the problem was caused by a tiny crack in the porcelain where the spark reaches the burner. The solution was a new burner. He went in the back and came out 15 minutes later with a burner in his hand. “I can’t believe we have this,” he said. “They stopped making that stove 10 years ago. This is probably the last one on the west coast. I’m trying to find out the price.”
While he went back into the office, his brother told me that he’d probably taken it off another rig.
He came back and said it was $27. He said he thought he might have taken it off a stove on a new camper that arrived dented. “When they arrive damaged, Lance just sends a new stove,” he told me. “So you have a choice: you can pay $27 for this or keep using a lighter.”
I splurged for the $27 burner. It was brand new. He installed it for free.
All this had taken well over an hour. I never get away without spending at least an hour there. Mike tried to talk to me about politics — he’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist — and I kept changing the subject. I was relived that he and his brother both wore masks while I was there. It told me they were taking the virus seriously.
I paid up and hit the road again.
Campsite on the American River
At this point, it was late in the afternoon and I wanted to get to my campsite. I took 97 back north a bit and then turned onto Route 12 westbound.
Last year, when I’d come back from a jewelry making class in Tacoma, I’d found what I considered the perfect campsite just off Route 410 on the east side of Chinook Pass. My idea was to spend the night there and then do a hike around Tips Lake, a little lake at Chinook Pass, in the morning.
My plans were almost ruined by a road closure sign. According to the sign, Route 410 was closed at mile marker 92. I pulled over where Route 12 and Route 410 meet to double-checked it online. WADOT had the same information. Trouble was, I didn’t know what mile marker my intended campsite was at. Maybe it was before 92?
I made a management decision: I continued on to 410 westbound.
It was actually a good thing I did. The road was not closed. I reached mile marker 92 and saw a few signs pushed aside. I didn’t see any sign of a fire. I kept going.
The trick was finding the campsite and being prepared to go back to a different place if it was occupied. I passed one Forest Service campground after another, most of which were closed. I also passed a bunch of forest roads that I might be able to explore for a site.
Meanwhile, mileage signs we telling me I was getting ever closer to Chinook Pass. I was definitely climbing. There was a river on my left. Soon, I was crossing it on a bridge. I knew the campsite was right beside one of those bridges, right on the river.
I passed the trailhead for Union Falls and filed it away in my head for a possible campsite if I couldn’t get the one I wanted. And then there it was, on my right. But there were people camped in it.
I knew that there was another campsite across the river and my eyes shifted as I slowed down. It looked vacant. The turn was a little bit up the road. I turned in and drove slowly down the gravel road. The site was empty.
The site was huge and could easily accommodate several RVs and tents. It had been occupied by a big group when I stayed across the river the previous October. It was lower and closer to the river, but large rocks prevented campers from driving down to the water. I picked a spot that looked level and backed in.
I walked around a bit with my girls for a potty break. I took photos of the late afternoon sun on the river and the flowers that grew along it. It was a really pretty afternoon with perfect weather and very little smoke from the area fires.
Left: I put a chair where I could sit overlooking the river, but actually spent very little time in it. Right: The view from that chair.
Some of the flowers blooming along the river.
One of those big rocks came in handy as a table for my propane grill.
Then we went back to camp and I set up my grill on one of the big rocks that prevented people from driving down to the river. I fed the girls and started making my dinner: some olive-oil sautéed broccoli, scallions, garlic, and pan gnocchi. I cooked up some sausages on the grill and cut them into my sauté. A little salt and it was perfect, with a portion leftover for lunch the next day.
Unfortunately, as night fell, my neighbors across the river decided to fire up their generator. It was so loud, I could hear it over the rushing of the river. What is it with people? What the hell are they running that they can’t run on batteries? But since it was getting cool at that elevation — around 4,000 feet — we went in for the night anyway. Once the windows were closed, I didn’t hear anything.
Morning
I slept reasonably well, although it did get almost cold enough during the night to consider either throwing on another blanket or turning on the heat. I did neither.
By 4 AM, I was wide awake. I got out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweat pants, and turned on the heat. Then I took care of the most important chore: I made coffee.
My pups slept.
I took the opportunity to finish writing the blog post I’d begun the night before, inserting all the photos where they needed to go. Then I took a few minutes to use GaiaGPS, which already had maps of the area loaded, to check out Union Falls. It looked like a nice, easy hike there.
When it got light out, the girls woke up and started playing on the bed. I threw on my slippers and a flannel shirt and took them out for a walk around the campsite. Once they’d done their business, I brought them back inside for breakfast. I made my breakfast, too: a bran cereal and homemade granola mix with blueberries I’d picked over the weekend and sliced bananas. Yum.
After a while, the girls started getting antsy. I let them out while I stowed the grill and my camp chair. Across the river, the other site was quiet. When sunlight hit the camper, it was time to go.
I took this picture of our campsite right before we left in the morning.
Union Falls Hike
I had never heard of Union Falls and if it hadn’t been detailed on GaiaGPS, I never would have stopped there. But after leaving camp, we backtracked about 1/3 mile and turned into the trailhead parking lot. There was a truck already parked there, but no one in sight.
I didn’t see any “No Camping” signs there, but I’m not sure I would have liked camping there. It was pretty close to the road and, because it’s a place with a sign, there’s always the chance of someone else pulling in in the middle of the night. Still, it had a bathroom and picnic tables and some signage that explained how to see the falls.
According to the sign, there was a 1/4 mile trail that took you over a log bridge and then to the bottom of the falls. But a fork in the trail would take you to the top of the falls. I decided to see what we’d see so we set off down the trail.
I was very glad to see that the log bridge was suitably wide and had a handrail.
The trail was wide and easy as it wound through forest, climbing slightly, with the sound of a rushing creek off to the right. We reached the log bridge in no time and crossed without much problem; Rosie was just slightly hesitant, but I coaxed her across. From there, the trail seemed to split and, of course, I couldn’t remember exactly what the sign I had read 10 minutes before said. I took the fork that climbed.
This is not the view I was hiking for.
Soon, we were on a series of switchbacks, climbing up the side of a narrow canyon. Occasionally, there were tantalizing glimpses of a tall waterfall rushing with water. The air was full of the sound.
We got level with the top of the falls but there was no good vantage point and the trail kept climbing. So we kept climbing, too. Finally, there looked like a good vantage point and I stopped for a look. It was a crappy view of the top of the falls.
I knew the trail went on to another falls quite a bit up the canyon, but I’d had enough climbing. We reversed our course and headed back.
This time, I took a right on one of the trails that led off toward the falls, figuring it would loop back to the one I’d passed up right after the log bridge. As I eased down one sandy slope after another, all I could think about was how glad I was that I didn’t have to come back that way. Then the trail ended suddenly at the bottom of the falls with no trail along the creek to get back. That’s when I knew I’d be climbing back up the way I’d come.
This was the view I was hiking for.
I took some time down there to look at the falls. It was a great vantage point — very close — and I bet it would be a real treat on a hot summer day to get into the mist and cool down. The falls were in sunlight; I had timed it just right. I took a few photos and even a video.
After a bit of a rest, we headed back up. It seemed shorter on the way back. Once back on the main trail, we continued down to the log bridge and then the trailhead. The truck that had been there was gone. We’d walked a total of 1.24 miles. You can see my track and the photos I took on the GaiaGPS website.
Look carefully and you should be able to see Rosie on Squirrel Patrol.
We spent a few minutes exploring the picnic area and crossing another bridge there to see what was on the other side. A sign told me that the Pleasant Valley Trail, #999, ran through there. Lily and Rosie interrupted a squirrel snacking on a pine cone on a stump and spent five minutes at the base of a tree waiting for it to come down.
Back at the camper, we went inside for water. I gathered together the trash in my trash can and dropped into into the bin beside the rest rooms. Then we climbed back into the truck and continued our travels.
Lily and Rosie loaded up and ready to go.
