For: NEGuy. Places to see in the mountains of the west!

NEGuy was asking about what to see on his first trip west. Let's help him out.

Caveat: Many passes and higher elevations may close early and open late. For instance, "Going to the Sun Highway" didn't open until almost August on our first trip to Glacier NP. We were snowed in at the Old Faithful Inn at Geyser Basin in Yellowstone.one year in mid-Sept. People were sleeping in the lobby.

Rocky Mountains first (North to South):

1. Glacier NP: Touristy and a "party" park unless you get back-country. Take the tour (antique red busses) over "Going to the Sun Highway" if you do go. Worth doing once.

2. Yellowstone NP: The Crown jewel of the National Park system! Make reservations early and stay at the Old Faithful Inn-largest log building in the world. Old Faithful Inn - Yellowstone National Park - Bing video. Go later in the year: mid-Sept to mid-Oct. Elk, maybe moose and wolves, lots of bison and bighorn sheep. Grand Teton and Jackson don't do anything for me. Jackson, it is said, is now only for billionaires since they drove the millionaires out of town!

3. Cheyenne Frontier Days: Late July. Lots of Rodeo, etc. Cheyenne has a GREAT cowboy museum.

4. Rocky Mountain National Park: Lots of animals. When trip planning be aware the passes lose early due to snow. East of Boulder, CO. Be sure to visit the Stanley Hotel which inspired Stephen King to write "The Shining". Founded by Stanley of the Stanley Steamer Company.

Stanley-Hotel.jpg (3888×2035) (popsugar-assets.com)

5. I'll let others talk of places along the remaining eat side of the "hills".

6. Mesa Verde National Park: fantastic cliff dwellings. Four Corners should be done once!

7. "Flag" (aka Flagstff): Walnut Canyon (east side of town) has walk-thru cliff dwellings (it is a climb!).

8. Flag to Gallup: Petrified Forest National Park, Winslow, AZ (one of the two remaining "Wigwam Motels"), Historic Route 66, Painted Desert and the Meteor Crater.

9. Gallup, NM: "Indian Capitol of the World". Stay at the "El Rancho Hotel" (I know: "the" and "El" are repetitive!). Was founded by the brother of director, D.W. Griffith, as a place for actors to stay while filming. Great breakfast enchiladas.

el rancho hotel - Bing images

Eat fry-bread at Merle's. Quaint old cemetery= many Masonic headstones. Main St (Business 66) has many shops with Native American crafts. Chaco Canyon National Monument is about 1.5 hours north and the Zuni Pueblo is about 1 hr south

10. Albuquerque is just another city (to me). Never explored it nor Santa Fe.

11. West side of the Rockies: Durango (great cowboy town), Telluride, Aspen, Vail are ski-towns. More for skiing and partying, in my opinion. Rifle (CO) is a quaint town. Steamboat is another "party" town.

I'm 74 and grew up in SoCal near the south end of the Sierras, lived 20+ years on the eastern slopes of the Cascades==you'll never see it all!

 

Great post. Thanks!

 

Now, western Sierras!

Real easy. Sonora Pass (closed in winter, fall, and spring) & Tioga Pass into Yosemite. Basically, Hwy 49 (The Gold Rush Hwy or Gold Hwy). Wanders through many of the historic Gold Rush towns such as Sonora, Jamestown, Alturas, Jackson (the motel still has bullet holes from a battle with Indians and registers signed by US Grant and Mark Twain), Placerville (formerly known as "Hangtown" and home of the "Hangtown Fry"), Grass Valley, Sutter Creek and Mokelumne Hill (aka "Mok Hill), site of a Tong War. Lots of Basque restaurants in Bakersfield. Not in the Sierras but the "Great Republic of Rough and Ready" north of Stockton.

"The town declared its secession from the Union as The Great Republic of Rough and Ready on 7 April 1850, largely to avoid mining taxes, but voted to rejoin the Union less than three months later on 4 July.[6] The old republic is celebrated annually as a way to attract tourism and as a point of local pride."

The story is they wanted a 4th of July party (big in the mining towns) and couldn't because they weren't part of the Union. When they sent their letter of secession to the state legislature the response was "Where?"

Once in Oregon, the western Cascades are primarily dominated by liberal politics. One place mentioning (if you are brave!) is Jake's crawfish in Portland. Great seafood with a new menu daily. Down the street is Powell's Bookstore (largest in the world=they have store maps available at the door. High crime rates make visiting Portland a bit risky, though! Of course, no visit is complete without visiting VooDoo Donuts. Crater Lake was disappointing.

In Washington, there is Seattle. Not a big deal and high crime rate. Pike's Market was nice but is no longer safe. South of Seattle is Ape Canyon:

"Ape Canyon was reportedly the site of a violent encounter in 1924 between a group of miners and a group of apemen. These allegations were reported in the July 16, 1924, issue of The Oregonian.

William Halliday, director of the Western Speleological Survey, claimed in his 1983 pamphlet Ape Cave and the Mount Saint Helens Apes that the miners' assailants were actually local youths. Until the eruption of Mount St. Helens, counselors from the YMCA's Camp Meehan on nearby Spirit Lake brought hikers to the canyon's edge and related a tradition that the 1924 incident was actually the result of young campers throwing light pumice stones into the canyon, not realizing there were miners at the bottom. Looking up, the miners would have only seen dark moonlit figures throwing stones at their cabin. The narrow walls of the canyon would have served to distort the voices of the YMCA campers enough to frighten the men below."

Basically, stick to the "dry side" of the mountains. They are MUCH more interesting, anyway!

 

Damn. This is so good and extremely helpful!

Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together. This will most certainly factor into our route planning etc.

 

Thanks again. Another nice post.

 

East side of the Cascades and Sierras, from Canada to Mexico:

1. East of the Cascades are the Channeled Scablands=area of eroded canyons rivaling anyplace I've seen in the west, including Utah. Water and ice eroded layer upon layer of basalt. They also mark the southernmost point of the glaciers during the last Ice Age. A line of rocks and boulders resembling a rock fence. There is a cavity created by a baby wooly rhinoceros that was trapped in a mud flow. Several fossil digs (as there are in the Northern Rockies). Also, giant boulders (called erratics) left behind by the ice sheet as well as the Missoula Flood, which was when an ice dam broke and the inland sea that covered southern Montana, southern Idaho & Wyoming, and eastern Washington drained, moving rocks from the Northern Rockies as far west as Portland, OR. Lots of petroglyphs and the Columbia Basin and Columbia Gorge. Also the "Palm Springs of Washington" (aka Yakima) = that's false advertising if ever there was!

2.Crossing into Oregon: Note the Mad Max type of cars! Lots of open spaces; There's Pendleton (where my paternal grandfather was born and where he rode rodeo!) and Bend. Outside of Bend is the High Desert Museum that is pricey but well worth it! Several ways south from Bend: inland to Reno or via Klamath Falls. A really scenic route is Hwy 97 south by Mt Shasta and Lake Shasta. Check for forest fires (checking any route is a good idea) = we've been blanketed by smoke=it was a pollution level of 189 here today! We prefer to avoid large cities, so we usually stay in Carson City. Beautiful scenery from Carson City south=beware of unseasonal or early snowfall! Outside of Bridgeport (good fishing in the Walker River, as well as many of the streams!) is the ghost town of Bodie. Held in a state of "arrested decay". Fantastic place to visit! In Bishop, there is Schatz's Bakery. Now a tourist site mostly mad but a great place for baked goods and sandwiches . South of Bishop, there are the Alabama Hills to the east, towards Death Valley. Many a movie was filmed there! Also, south of Bishop is Manzanar, a Japanese "Relocation Camp" from WWII. Long abandoned, it has been restored in part and is a National Monument. I'm not discussing side-trips to Death Valley or over the Sierras at Lee Vining or Sonora Pass. To the west, about Independence is Mt Whitney. Below Bishop and Independence, the highway forks with one fork heading west to Los Angeles through the town of Mojave or east towards Barstow.

C'mon!! I'm sure somebody's got something to add. Any favorite places I've missed?

Oh, I do have to mention the BEST hamburger joint in the WORLD!!!! Tommy's Original Burgers (a family-owned chain in SoCal, famous hangout for USC and UCLA students) has a branch in Barstow at the Factory Outlets!

 

Very cool. I’ve thought it would be interesting to have a road trip app that you could open and hear micro-level info and history of your current location.

 

You blipped the Seattle area too quickly.

Mt Baker - Near the Canadian border, it stands out like a sore thumb as you are driving east of I-5. Beautiful drive east of there and looping back through Monroe is gorgeous. On the way from Seattle northbound, Mt Vernon is the second largest Tulip growing region
in the world. Stunning mid March through mid April.

Whidbey Island NAS - The drive out to the island west of Mt Vernon is not only beautiful, but getting buzzed by A-10 Warthogs is not uncommon. Head to the west end of the island and catch a ferry across Puget Sound to Vancouver, BC or to the Washington peninsula towards Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Sequim, the furthest point NW in the country and the location where the Twilight films were filmed. In Port Townsend visit the old NAS on the island where the US Army was stationed looking for ships and submarines trying to head into Puget Sound during WWI & II.

East of Seattle - Snoqualmie Pass year 'round. Watching them close the pass both directions to fire cannons onto the mountain sides to create avalanches is awesome. Snoqualmie Lodge with its massive waterfall. The lodge is worth the stop for coffee and scones in the morning. Stevens Pass is a fantastic drive. About 45 mins east of the pass is leavenworth. A gorgeous German mountain town squeezed between two cliffsides. Gorgeous during the holidays.

Mt Rainer - 1 hour SE of downtown Seattle, in late spring through late fall you can circumnavigate the mountain in less than a day. Head up to Paradise Lodge for stunning views of glaciers and the valley below. The lodge is buried under more than 200" of snow every winter. Must stop is Rainier Base Camp Restaurant. Opened by brothers Jim and Lou Whittaker. Jim was the first American to summit Everest. Had an entire 30 minute conversation with Jim, and didn't know it was him. I was the lone customer in a snowstorm circa 1993.

Mt St Helens - If you want to see devastation on a scale never seen before in modern day, this is a must stop. Great drive from I-5 up to a great vantage point to see the crater and the millions of trees that fell like toothpicks in perfect order.

Mt Hood, Oregon - Summer snowstorms are not unheard of.

 

Guess I've driven Snoqualmie and Stevens Passes too often. Seattle is NOT my kind of town. Did enjoy Pike's (and Kell's) before it got too dangerous. Whitbey (and Desolation) are nice. Snoqualmie Falls is nice, and the area is a must for Twin Peaks fans. Forks is quaint and the Hoh is beautiful. Astoria has the Coast Guard Life-saving Museum. Just wanted to try to limit to the major mountain ranges and close-by areas.

 

Thats why I left Seattle proper and anything inside King County out. Lived there 22 years. Got out before it got retarded.

If you've never circumnavigated Mt Rainier, it is worth the day. Driving through 150' trees, massive boulders strewn by glacier activity over the eons, looking up and seeing the top of a 14k' mountain with its glaciers... its stunning.

Oh, and the Olympic Rain Forest and Hurricane Ridge. The ORF gets 144" of rain per year. Camping there is unlike anywhere else in the US.

 

Didn't see it mentioned, but no trip out west should overlook Ouray, CO in the San Juan mountains of Colorado.

https://www.visitouray.com/

 

Colorado is its own 9 page story. But, i'll be in Ouray for New years this year and then down to the Navajo Dam for some snowy fly fishing.

 

Great list!

Some additions for the Bishop/395 corridor:
- When in Bishop there is a good brewpub for food and beer. Mountain Rambler. And across the street is a good bakery: Great Basin Bakery. The locals go there instead of Schatz’s.
- The Crowley Lake columns. There’s a massive dirt uphill climb at the beginning of the trail there. If it’s too daunting to drive just hike it to the lake.


- Out of Big Pine is the road to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains. At over 10,000 ft elevation it’s the location of the oldest living (non-clonal) organism on earth.

- Further south on 395 out of Ridgecrest are the Trona Pinnacles, another other-worldly movie location. Not spectacular, but if you’ve got the time…

- And further north, near Lee Vining, is Mono Lake. Volcanoes to climb, and hot springs to soak in.

 

Don't forget Mammoth, either. Out of the way, but Trona itself is interesting=the 20 Mule Team exhibit. We're coming from Vegas to Carson City next month that way=lots of wild burros. Satus Pass (on Hwy 97 south of Toppenish) has lots of wild horses. Toppenish (on the Yakama "Rez") is the "City of Murals". A & B Native American restaurant is there=great fry bread!

 

Broke down between Ouray and Durango, returning from an elk hunt in Wyoming. A blizzard and I only had a Hi-Lift in my truck. Needed the Toyota jack to lower my spare tire! Two elk hunters came by and helped us out!