Alongside the depot in Skykomish where the volunteers for the miniature railway were gathered was a parking lot. In this lot was a Harley Davidson bike with a sidecar fitted. While it was clearly an old vintage of bike, it seemed to be in excellent condition and lovingly maintained.
Our trip across Stevens Pass ended just short of Leavenworth. We took a run along the river through Tumwater Canyon. Here the river sits in the bottom of the valley and the road runs alongside it. Plenty of nice views of the river as it winds its way downhill, some of which you can only see as you drive along the road because there is no space to stop. Other locations, though, do provide an area to allow you to pull off and wander around. Given how pretty it is, you are not alone in these places!
The river widens out in places and then narrows in to some rapids in others. On a sunny day with the fall foliage around, standing by the water and watching the swirling and tumbling flows is really relaxing. The noise of the water can drown out the traffic passing not far away and you can be quite mesmerized. If you don’t mind the close proximity to the traffic, you can also explore a little in each direction away from the parking and get some great new views of the river. You are either walking alongside the road or outside the barriers and close to the edge of the river so paying attention is a must!
One downside to the popularity of the place is that it is a bit tricky to avoid having lots of people in your shots. You can move away a little and have them out of sight. Alternatively, a little careful selection of your angles and shooting location and they can either be cropped out or cunningly concealed behind some other part of the scenery.
At the majority of airports I fly out, there are basic tugs used to push the airliners back. They are hooked on using a towbar and push the jet out. The tugs at Heathrow are a bit different from the ones I am used to seeing. They are the type of tug that actually picks up the noseleg to move the aircraft out. The leg is surrounded by the tug and elevated. The tug then drives wherever required with the leg coming along. They are pretty substantial beasts. Moving a widebody needs a big tug I guess. They can move a 747 or an A380 but in this case “only” a 787.
The old path of the railroad across Stevens Pass has been abandoned and replaced by a new route that is lower down and has tunneled through sections of the mountains to avoid the tricky climb that was previously required. This abandoned right of way has been turned into a trail called the Iron Goat Trail. Since it is a railroad trackbed, it is not a steep trail which means that a substantial portion of it is actually wheelchair accessible!
Our day out did not include time for hiking but the trail looks well worth exploring and, come the spring, we shall be making a specific trip to go hiking. We did stop at the parking lot to read the signs about the history of the pass. Also, an old caboose is kept at the entrance to the trail and I figured it deserved a shot!
The view from our hotel in Whistler towards the mountains was really pretty but never more so than when the sun was setting. A couple of evenings I thought I should get a shot but was either elsewhere or too slow. I did manage to get out there one time though, although I was still a little late. The shadows were creeping up the lower slopes of the mountains but I still had the nice color on the summits. The warm, evening light was really appealing and mountains look good at the best of times so this was a great scene to see.
Lost Lake is a within walking distance of the center of Whistler. The trail from the town takes you along the river. Once you get to the lake you can take a walk around the perimeter. There is a beach area that is at one end of the lake that was a popular spot that day. (You can park there if you don’t feel like a walk from the town.) While the temperatures were not that high, a couple of people were even making use of the clear skies to do some sunbathing!
We too an alternate route around one side of the lake. A trail was named the Upper Panorama Trail so we took it. I think we were justified in assuming that this route would give us an elevated view of the lake. I’m not sure if there were spots that you could see the lake if you went off the trail but, from the trail itself, we were deep in the trees the entire time. There was no view of the lake from up there. It was a good walk though and an opportunity to walk off some of the bakery goods we had been sampling!
If you are looking for a place with a great sounding name, it is hard to beat Skykomish. What a fun sounding name. The town is a railroad town heading in to (or out of) the Stevens Pass and it provides space for trains to pass when traveling in opposite directions. It supports the train theme for visitors too. The old depot building is kept in good condition and next to it is a miniature railway that is available for public rides. While we were there, a lot of the volunteers were around but not much in the way of customers, so we didn’t see it in action. A miniature BNSF diesel loco was set up on the train waiting for customers while the volunteers also seemed to be working on some steam locos. Hopefully, as the day wore on, they got more visitors. (It was close to Halloween if you are wondering about the giant spider!)
The stormy skies over the Island were very active in the Sandown Bay area. In the course of a couple of minutes, you could see the valleys on the opposite side of the bay have clouds wisp across them and then suddenly vanish from view entirely. They could be back a few minutes later and then gone again. The wind was blowing things through very rapidly. For a few moments, there were some great beams of light punching through the clouds and illuminating the water beneath. I was lucky to be able to get a few shots off before the clouds rolled through again and cut of the sun altogether.
I have put together some posts of things we saw during our Whistler trip but not much of the town itself. It is a nice place to hang out. Like a lot of these winter sports resort towns, the center is predominantly restaurants/bars or places to buy clothing/sport gear. However, it isn’t a bad place despite that. The streets are laid out so nothing is too straight which means you feel like you are wandering around an old place, even if it is all relatively recently built.
There are water features and bridges, open spaces, sculptures and other forms of art. No shortage of people, too, even in the shoulder season when we were there. We found so great places to eat and some less inspiring ones. We actually went to a chain place one evening and it proved to be better than some of the supposedly nicer spots. Our favorite by far, though, was a bakery that had every conceivable thing you could want. They even had a cheese sandwich for toasting that looked like it would feed a family of four. We tried many of their treats but that one was left untouched, despite me giving it some serious consideration.
I took a wrong turning as we went over Stevens Pass and, instead of going where I had intended, we took a back road which was probably once the main road across the mountains. It twisted through the woods, never getting too far from the current highway, but being far more enclosed and far narrower. Fortunately, not much traffic was coming the other way, so it was easy enough to navigate. We crossed a small bridge which was over some falls. I can’t be sure but, judging by the map, the water seemed to be called Martin Creek so maybe the falls are of the same name?
