We looked at some of the other things to do while we were in the area. I really wanted to do the Bigfoot Series in North Bonneville a few years ago but never went down to get them. I added them to the list for this trip. Mom had been looking at waterfalls on the Washington side of the gorge and found one, Panther Creek Falls, to go see north of Carson. We also added that to the list.
I got everything we needed ready the night before and when I got up at 6:45 the next day I made sure we had some snacks and drinks in my little cooler. I threw on some comfortable clothes, grabbed a quick breakfast to eat on the way. Ben called me on the phone as I was getting ready to lock the door. I talked to him on the way to mom and dad's house until the phone had no reception. He was on a 24-hour shift at the fire station.
When I got to mom and dad's house I had to get on mom because she wasn't ready. I helped her get ready and told her we were going to drive her Expedition. She said sure. We got all of her stuff and left the house around 8:30ish. We got onto I-5 south and stopped in Napavine at Love's to get some gas. We talked about the stuff that was happening at work, the upcoming stuff that was happening in October and other random things that came up during conversation as we reached the junction of I-5 and I-205. We reached the junction for Hwy 14 east and took that exit. We had about 30 miles to go.
While driving down this road, we reminisced on the last time we came through here...which was awhile ago. We took the last curve and bam, there was the parking for Beacon Rock. We parked near the restrooms, took turns and then decided to park closer to the trail head. We parked and then got all of our stuff ready. I asked mom where her Discover Pass was and she said it should be in the console. It wasn't. She forgot to put it in the Expedition. We had to drive across the street to get a day pass for $10. I kept telling mom how lame she was and she just ignored me.
We drove back over to our spot near the trail head, grabbed our stuff and headed up. We took a lot of pictures along the way. There were many switchbacks and in some places the trail was so narrow, we had to squeeze by other hikers.
The views were amazing! The construction of this trail was pretty ingenious. It almost looked like metal scaffolding zig zagging back and forth.
We got up to the top and there were some boy scouts with their scout leaders learning about the area. Mom and I figured out the virtual cache, Beacon Rock Summit (GC7B9W7), logged the nearby benchmark and took a dozen pictures. The view from the top was amazing. You could see the Columbia River for miles. We did notice where that fire raged through the gorge as well. It definitely ruined the scenery for a while. I'm glad they stopped it before it ruined Multnomah Falls and the lodge there.
I pointed out where we were we were going to go after we walked back down to the Expedition. I told her there was a walking trail and several bigfoot statues. She was surprised I haven't gotten those caches yet. I told her I was going to one summer but it just never happened. Today was the day!
While heading down, we noticed a lot of people coming up wearing open toed shoes and had no water with them. This wasn't the first nor the last time we would see this. We got back to the Expedition and headed to North Bonneville. It was a short downhill drive. The last time I stopped here I was with Ben and we took a picture of the pair of Bigfoots that greet you into town. I didn't realize at the time there was a geocache series here.
We pulled into a parking lot and I got out. It was a quick park and grab near the Bigfoots behind a wooden sign. Mom took some pictures of the Bigfoots while I found the cache BFDT 1 - The Search for Sasquatch (GC4HD1M). I read ahead to find out where we needed to park for the rest.
I followed the parking coordinates to the beginning of the Discovery Trails system that meanders through the neighborhood. We made sure we had everything we would need before we started our two mile walk. I looked at the map to see which ones and in what order we needed to grab so we weren't backtracking.
BFDT 2 - Discovery Loop Littlefoots (GC57BZ3) was our first one since it was near the beginning of our walk. I thought it was going to be hidden in the rock pile but in fact it was hidden in a carved out hole on the side of the wooden statue. I had a feeling most of them were going to be hidden like this.
The next cache, BFDT 9 - Acrobat Bigfoot (GC57F2P) was at a pretty unique statue series. We were impressed when we got to ground zero and the cache was really easy to find as well.
BFDT 6 - The Fisherfoot (GC57CB0) was a little trickier to find. The coords were a bit off and I didn't think they would put one of their wooden statues that far off the trail. As I walked down there a woman and her dog were walking up from the area. I found the Bigfoot and made the grab.
We walked onto the next one, BFDT 5 - The Wildlife Watcher (GC57CA5). This one took us to a great view of a wildlife field. I guess at certain times of the day you can see a whole herd of elk eating grass. Upon first glance I could not see any wooden statues. I took a closer look and found them around a corner on a stump. You also could see that some of the neighbors were feeding some of the wildlife with smashed up pumpkins and other vegetables hanging on the fence. I grabbed the cache, signed our names, got a quick picture and returned it. One of the neighbors saw us and came down to talk to us. He asked us if we've found them all. We said no yet, we still have a few more. Then he preceded to tell us about the area for about 20 minutes or so. He talked about who owned the land, the small down, the dam and the devastating fires from last fire season. We thanked him for the information and went on our way.
There was a large gap of trail between the next cache and the one we just found. We looped around and now was on our way back towards the park where mom's Expedition was parked. BFDT 4 - The Golfer Bigfoot (GC57C4T) we actually had to be careful at. There were active golfers nearby and we had to make sure we weren't too loud or in the way. I made the grab as mom acted as a lookout. This was the first container that wasn't a lock n' lock.
We were finally on our last one, BFDT 3 - Peeking Out Bigfoot (GC57C35). I was pretty happy because my feet needed a break from all of the walking. Plus, I was in need of a snack soon. We followed the path to this small grouping of trees. You could see the wooden bigfoot statue from a ways away. I had to wait until some muggles walked past us before I went for the find.
The Expedition was not too far away from the last bigfoot cache. We used the restroom and then sat with the air conditioning on while we ate our snacks. I brought a lunchable, a banana and some fruit snacks. They hit the spot. I found the coordinates for the Panther Creek waterfall and plugged them into Nuvi. We got back onto Hwy 14 and headed east towards the small town of Carson.
We got off Hwy 14 and headed north on the Wind River Hwy. We followed that road for a while until Nuvi told us to turn right onto NF-65. That took us through the Panther Creek Campgrounds (the PCT also cuts through this area) and we followed that road to the cache, Panther Creek (GC2DFBV) that I wanted to get while we were out here. Mom sat in the Expedition while I jumped out and looked for the cache. It took a few minutes to pinpoint where it was. I found the obvious pile of northwest camo hiding the container. On the way back I stopped and took a picture of the river down below.
We drove further up the forest road (it was nicely paved) and found the large gravel parking lot after driving past it the first time (not very well marked.) We parked, grabbed our stuff and found the small trailhead marker that was about 50 yards behind us from the lot.
We walked down the trail to the wooden platform. There were a lot of people here and a pair of people hogging the prime corner of the platform with their professional camera set-up so we had to be patient. We spent about a half hour here talking pictures and exploring.
We started our walk back up and walked past a bunch more people. We got back to the Expedition and went back the way we came. We got into Carson and took a side road to Hwy 14 because I wanted the other virtual cache, We Love Highway 14: It's a What? I Don't See It. (GC6F78). It's an older cache from July 2002 and I've always meant to stop for it along the way but just never made the time. We pulled over into this pullout and read the cache page. Basically, you're suppose to see a Native American man's face looking up into the sky on the hill. I actually did see it and took a few pictures to prove I was here.
We got back on Hwy 14 and drove back towards Stevenson. Just after Stevenson we got onto the Bridge of the Gods because mom had never been over it. It cost us a $2 toll to go over. We stopped at the small park under the bridge to take a few pictures. A few years ago Ben and I came here and we thought the cougar painting was funny. The cougar looked surprised. Mom decided that we were going to drive to St. Helens again to go see the pumpkins. A few weeks back we went and the Halloweentown decorations weren't out yet.
We headed towards Portland via I-84 and got stuck in a little bit of traffic because I-205 had an accident. We continued on I-84 to I-5 and got off immediately towards St. Helens on Hwy 30. We went over the bridge and through the industrial area of Hwy 30. We followed the road until we got to St. Helens. Mom looked up the website as I drove.
We turned off the highway and headed into town. We found a parking spot just off the street, parked the Expedition and walked to City Hall to take pictures of the pumpkins.
Mom found the info booth and got a map of the tourist spots. We took a few pictures around town and used the park bathroom before we went into a store so mom could get a Halloweentown shirt and two purple grocery bags with the logo on it. One of the bags was for her co-worker Amy's birthday.
We got back in the Expedition and headed north through Rainier, over the bridge into Longview and on I-5 to Centralia. We decided to eat dinner at Harold's burger bar. We drove the back way home through Bucoda and into Tenino where we stopped to say hi to Ben at the fire station. He was happy we stopped to see him. I drove into Rainier, dropped mom off and headed home.
I got home at 9ish, took a shower and got everything ready for Geocoin Fest the next day. I had to get up early because Bev was going to meet me at my house and I was going to drive up to Bellevue. It was going to be a long day.
Next Adventure: GEOCOINFEST 2018: Seattle
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