For the first time in probably 7 years, I had a nice Valentine's Day, and I didn't plan any of it. Awesome! We went snowshoeing up near Mt. St. Helens. Although it started out raining/snowing here in Portland, by the time we reached our final destination, it was beautiful sunshine (see photo above).
En route, we noticed signs directing travelers to "Ape Cave," and wondered why it was named that. Our intent was to snowshoe to Lake Mary (?), but it began to snow hard, the little road leading to the trail was getting slick and treacherous, I didn't have chains, and finally we saw a policeman on the road who told us not to go there. "Go to Ape Cave instead," he said. And so we did. Turned out to be a good decision.Ape cave is an old lava tube spidering out from Mt. St. Helens. It was named thus after a boyscout troupe that helped discovered it, sorry, that not a very interesting or romantic story. I was personally hoping that there were some sort of ape-shaped rock formation inside of it. But no.
Flashlights were required down there; without them, it's pitch black. Fortunately, some hikers let us borrow theirs. Inside, there were interesting icicles everywhere--sort of rounded and smooth, instead of sharp and jabby. I tried to take photos of them, but this was the best one--which wasn't all that great. All the rest were too blurry.
The scenery and trees were incredibly pretty.
During this little excursion, I discovered that snowshoeing is easy (yay!) and that people in small towns in the NW somehow manage to have funny accents like those who have lived in the deep south all their lives. Who would have thought?
Once we got back to Portland, we went for a drink (prosecco--very nice) at Noble Rot, only to discover that it was the last night in its current location. On the 20th, it will reopen in the former Rocket space on Burnside. I sure hope they remodel the space before Noble Rot moves in. Rocket had an awesome view, but the interior was all gray and ultra-modern, whereas Noble Rot is sort of Euro-bohemian and very cozy. I prefer cozy.
After that, we had a delicious prix-fix dinner at Navarre. It was an excellent Valentine's Day.
2 comments:
Ohh--that's a pretty area. I've been hiking up there in the springtime.
I was watching News Hour the other day and they were interviewing these people about pollution. I would have sworn they were talking to people from the mid-Valley, but no. They were from Tennessee.
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