10/6/17 - It's been quite a while since I've entered anything here. I guess I got out of the habit of doing anything while I was going through treatment this spring and summer. (I'm fine--actually, I was never anything but fine. Bored with all the daily trips to the hospital, maybe.) But we're back on the road now, and I'm trying to get back in the routine.
This was a little excursion we made last May. I've been racking my memory to match comments with pictures. Fudging a little on the date so I can put the post in the month we visited.
We hadn't been to Snoqualmie Falls in Snoqualmie, WA, in years. The snow was melting in the Cascades and there was so much of it this year that I knew the falls would be impressive. They were forecasting high temps and sunshine for Memorial Day weekend--first time in years for both in Puget Sound. I talked George, Jeff and his girlfriend to make a trip to Snoqualmie.
For some reason, I completely ignored the fact that it was a holiday weekend, and that there would be crowds. Big crowds! And that meant parking spaces were at a premium. George and I really aren't used to that. I read that over 1.5 million people come view the falls annually; approximately a third of them were here today.
Once we'd struggled into a parking space, we headed for the Rim Viewpoint. Apparently everyone else was doing the same thing. Apparently we were all working on the assumption that if we didn't see the waterfall immediately, it would disappear.
The amount of water coming over the top
was frightening. Truly awesome, in the standard, not the vernacular sense
of the word. Impressive. Amazing.
Noisy. And definitely forces-of-nature frightening.
We walked down the Peregrine Trail to the Peregrine Viewpoint (clever, huh?) It's lower than the rim, but not as low as the river. From the overlook we just stared at all that water as it crashed down the 269' to the Snoqualmie River
below. Hmmm...I would have guessed it was higher than that.
Across the river and above the falls is an
intake building for the Puget Sound Energy hydroelectric project.
We moved lower along the path towards the
River Viewpoint, this one through the forest. There were fewer people on the trail now. After all, who goes down must come up.
Some of the rhododendrons were still
blooming. Nobody grows rhodies like the Pacific NW does!
The only mammals we saw along the trail were a couple of squirrels. Think I would have been surprised, possibly astounded, had we seen any of these:
Jeff takes as many pictures as I do, but
all with his phone. I do Flickr and a blog, all with a real camera. He does Facebook and Instagram and who knows what else!
Along the way are a lot of things I’d
never seen before--we've seen a lot of things on this trip, but I guess I haven't paid much attention during hydroelectric presentations. The things we’re
standing in are portions of old high-pressure pipes called “penstocks” that
were salvaged from the world’s first completely underground hydroelectric
plant, built in 1898-99 across the river. These were put in vertically.
These diagonal ones next to the trail were for Plant 2 and
connected a tunnel and forebay to the powerhouse below. I thought this was interesting, but
didn’t stop to read everything, probably why I'm not very well versed on hydroelectric production and can't explain it any better than this. There's a limit to even my curiosity and educational interests.
Just past the powerhouse is a boardwalk
going down to the River Viewpoint. We kept going down.
Downstream it's still pretty turbulent, but eventually it'll smooth out a little more before it empties into Puget Sound near Everett.
A few more pictures here: Snoqualmie Falls
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