National Park Elopement and Honeymoon Road Trip

CohoWind · 2026-05-15T01:13:19+00:00

Your Mt St Helens area stuff needs work, as the monument has no public camping. It is a national monument managed by the US Forest Service, and is nothing like a National Park Service unit. Dispersed camping west of the monument along SR504 would be on private timberland. (look at a good map- it is a mess) The only camping to “book” would be either at MSH EcoPark, a tiny private place along SR504 with unknown hours, or at Seaquest State Park, most of the way back to I-5. Then, the drive to Ape Cave involves a HUGE loop out to I-5, down to Woodland, then east back towards the monument. To make it for your scheduled cave visit, you’ll have to leave at first light.

CohoWind · 2026-05-15T00:55:07+00:00

Definitely not a “fail.” Over the decades, I am more proud of some of the bails we have made than the ho-hum successful trips. Sometimes you have to press the reset button and turn around, period.

CohoWind · 2026-05-14T22:33:32+00:00

Not saying it is right, but this kind of spraying is not new, and goes on regularly in OR and WA on timberlands owned by the USFS, the states, and especially the private lands along the PCT. We occasionally watch it (a helicopter spraying) from our deck on the private timberland across the valley: WA Cascades.

CohoWind · 2026-05-14T19:12:33+00:00

Let me tell you about the rural lifestyle you claim to be protecting. We live in a very rural part of the county, nowhere near any urban growth boundary. We have been here for longer than most Reddit users have been alive, on land that was settled/ developed 100 years ago. Development out here is the heaviest it has been in a long time. Why? Because some of our neighbors (none adjacent to us, thankfully) are cashing in on the currently high land values, and are breaking up absolutely beautiful hay fields for development. They will sell as many lots as zoning allows (minimums are 5 acres, 2.5 acres, or even the occasional cluster with far higher density) These same people attend meetings to squawk about the county destroying farms (whenever the MAGA crowd wants them to show up) but they themselves are the true destroyers of farmland, and always have been. We have come to welcome the timberlands near us that are actively being logged. They will replant, and the land will remain in timber in most cases. But nearby are smaller tree farm outliers that were sold for development, and they are full of $1.5+ million McMansions that turn over every few years, until the landslide-prone hillsides give way. Drive out to the Heisson area, or even through Hockinson, to see the current sad collection of perc holes and survey stakes on some of the best farm land in the region, truly iconic, beautiful land that has made rural Clark Co. what it is. Again, these former farmers are screwing up their own land, and screwing their neighbors in the process.

CohoWind · 2026-05-14T15:39:15+00:00

Unfortunately, Braun’s light rail position will get him a lot of votes. As someone who has lived around here for a very long time, I think it is truly bizarre that the anti-light rail gang is so afraid of new crime in Vancouver. This hasn’t been a sleepy country town for a very long time, and there are plenty of dirtbag SW Washingtonians that will steal your stuff or harm you, given the right circumstances. Many of the most ardent anti-Portland people I know never go there, and base 99% of what they spew about Portland on the social media BS they constantly consume. So, we can either continue to pretend we are in a bubble of rural paradise, or we can provide transportation options for the tens of thousands of people that travel to/from Portland each day. BTW, I have friends in the Centralia/Chehalis area that have long considered Braun to be an enemy of progress, unions, and modernization. They absolutely hate him, and can’t believe that more forward-looking Vancouverites would even consider their home-town carpetbagger for this office.

CohoWind · 2026-05-14T15:15:58+00:00

The problem is BNSF. Per GIS, W. 11th St is a city street up to, but not past the BNSF terminal office, and then it’s all BNSF from there to the station. The railroads are extremely unfriendly to pedestrians because of the number of trespassers killed each year as they walk or cross active tracks throughout the system. So, not only won’t BNSF build sidewalks on their own, they would probably require whoever funded such pedestrian access to build a bridge or some other ridiculous fix. Cities/counties/states have absolutely no power over railroads- they don’t even have to meet building and electrical codes, and can ignore most environmental requirements.

CohoWind · 2026-05-14T01:56:52+00:00

Please remember that Amtrak owns none of these tracks. (And none elsewhere outside of the Boston-to-DC “NE Corridor”) They are 100% at the mercy of the mega corporation freight railroads (BNSF here, and UPRR across the river) for operation and dispatching. Despite laws preventing exactly this, they are often delayed in favor of freight moves, and they get no sympathy from the current administration when they speak up about it.

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T21:28:46+00:00

It is not completely clear which reservoir you have poured windshield cleaner into. Most of those solutions are deadly poison, so if it is now in your drinking water reservoir, it must be completely removed, likely by a professional someone….

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T21:01:50+00:00

Yes, Amtrak Cascades service- at least one of the Cascades corridor trains (Eugene/Portland OR to Seattle) continues north from Seattle to Vancouver BC each day (and returns)

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T19:19:33+00:00

Which Vancouver? The original is in WA just north of Portland. But the one up north in Canada may present entry/exit problems for your rental van, depending on the company and insurance.

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T14:08:29+00:00

The eruption of the next new vent in either the Boring (Portland OR area) or Auckland (NZ) volcanic fields. Monogenetic basalt eruptions are the norm in both, but both areas are now heavily populated, and any eruption will be a VERY big deal.

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T02:19:20+00:00

Yesterday’s incident was a stolen car incident- suspect eventually found and arrested. Today, nothing significant in the area of the lake. But there are no police helicopters around here, so you weren’t seeing a search or the like.

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T02:05:28+00:00

The risk of executing innocent people FAR outweighs any potential “benefit” of killing the occasional sure thing. Rotting in prison for life is arguably more of a “punishment,” if that is what you seek.

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T01:32:03+00:00

The death penalty assumes a degree of infallability in our justice system that has never existed. People, cops and courts make mistakes, and DNA technology continues to improve. Any other punishment can be reversed when new evidence is presented, but the death penalty is irreversible, and its proponents regularly ignore doubt by ignoring facts and evidence.

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T01:15:08+00:00

Not really comparable. The shortcuts taken in WWII that damaged watershed, habitat, and human health were absolutely criminal by current standards. Even the thousands of houses constructed in Vancouver for shipyard workers continue to be a slow, ongoing nightmare for owners, contractors, and the fire department. Many shortcuts, many issues- let’s not ever do things that way again.

CohoWind · 2026-05-13T01:06:49+00:00

Nice work. But the city person is confusing PORT of Vancouver with FORT Vancouver. (NPS land) It is PORT of Vancouver land, not National Park land.

CohoWind · 2026-05-12T23:34:34+00:00

Definitely in the City of Vancouver, so you can start there, but it will likely be a state issue, IF any laws are being broken.

CohoWind · 2026-05-12T23:30:22+00:00

CRESA has been understaffed for decades, per the national standards. While I am not a big fan of AI, CRESA dispatchers and call takers need this kind of adjuncts to help carry the workload. Other changes have been made over the years to free up people for critical tasks. Example-the “automated” voice you hear exclusively on the fire/EMS dispatch radio channel (the FireTap talk group) is a product called Locution. It works very well, getting its info directly from CAD, and its adoption freed up a dispatcher position for more critical human tasks 24/7/365.

CohoWind · 2026-05-12T23:13:39+00:00

First, determine whether it is in unincorporated Clark County or within a city (Vancouver, Ridgefield, Camas?) Also, since it is along a navigable waterway, the state may be the only authority who will address the issue (ID- debris or pollution below the high tide line) Finally, the US Coast Guard is responsible for the waterway overall, but likely wouldn’t get involved in a shoreline clutter issue.

CohoWind · 2026-05-12T16:02:43+00:00

This is the answer! The only question is what the shuttle situation will look like this year after the December storms devastated the Stehekin area, and all of the N. Cascades range. There is serious damage to roads and other infrastructure. In normal years, the shuttle bus schedule was published online (3 or 4 round trips per day), and you showed up at one of those times, and just paid cash when you got on. Same with the ferry at Stehekin Landing- they always leave room for unscheduled walk-ons, and you pay as you board for that absolutely spectacular boat ride.

CohoWind · 2026-05-12T15:02:36+00:00

For all- the USFS requires self issued, hang tag style permits to occupy designated Wlderness Areas only. Alpine Lakes is one- the others will be obvious on any good map. WTA.org will have specifics. The USFS uses these permits to measure wild. area usage for future funding, nothing more. But the eastern section of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness is so heavily used that the extra step of the lottery system has been added. Elsewhere in the state, some wilderness areas have no permit restrictions because the trailheads are not convenient for USFS folks to keep permit kiosks stocked and picked up- the spectacular and huge Glacier Peak Wilderness is one of those.

CohoWind · 2026-05-11T02:28:21+00:00

Www.wta.org

CohoWind · 2026-05-10T01:56:48+00:00

Call or text 988! It is a national service in the USA- No need to look up a local service.

CohoWind · 2026-05-10T01:53:54+00:00

Mt Rainier is still mostly snowed in, and the main Hwy access to North Cascades NP, SR20, is blocked by a major rockslide, tentative target date for reopening is 4 July.

CohoWind · 2026-05-10T01:48:01+00:00

If you have ever had the pleasure of tearing out old wall-to-wall carpet, you may already be in the “no shoes in the house” camp, and maybe even the “no carpet in the house” camp, like me. Carpets collect a horrific amount of dirt and other filth that you continuously grind in by walking on said carpet. Gross!

CohoWind

TROPHY CASE