Never turn your back on a mountain.

Note: Earlier this summer, my husband and I found ourselves in an unfamiliar dilemma: we both had a chunk of vacation time we needed to use immediately. The situation called for an epic road trip across the wilds of Washington, Canada and Montana. More background in earlier post: Northwest road trip, part I: Ghosts and vampires

While Olympic National Park is home to the majestically named Olympic mountain range, it didn’t prepare us for the peaks of British Columbia. The first attack came just after we left Vancouver. We wound our way north along the famous Sea-to-Sky Highway, admiring views of water and forest, and when we came to a sign for a waterfall at a provincial park (kind of like a state park here), we turned off the road. Our reward was the sight of Shannon Falls’ 1,000-plus-foot foot cascade.

That should have taught us something. But instead, when just down the road we came upon a scenic viewpoint sign with a little mountain graphic on it, we hardly noticed. 

“Stop?” my husband asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Nah,” I said from the passenger seat. We hadn’t been driving very long; we’d just stopped at the waterfall; plus, I figured we weren’t going to get a dramatically better view of the distant peaks than what we could see out our car window.

We zipped by the turnoff. A moment later, we went around a corner.

“Oh my God! Wow! Holy—- ! Wow!”

Giant, glacier-covered mountains loomed to the west. They were so big, and so unexpected; it felt like they were nearly on top of us. I grabbed for the camera and got off a few through-the-window shots while my husband tried to keep from driving us off the road.

Honey, there’s a mountain at the window.

And thus we learned our first lesson of Canada: When they tell you there’s something to look at, they really mean it.

From there, the sights only got bigger and more impressive. Any bend could yield a breathtaking vista. We expected that in the national parks, but realized the whole freaking province was stunning. We even started joking each time we neared a provincial park: “Oh, it’s just a provincial park. It’s probably something like Yellowstone, only twice as big with five times as many geysers.”

Just another amazing, giant mountain in Canada.

Of course, once we did reach the national parks and the Rocky Mountains, the alpine attacks only became more frequent. I finally stopped taking photos of mountains. Partly, it was because they were literally everywhere I looked. But also, I knew their grandeur wouldn’t have the same power when I was home, looking at them on a computer screen, instead of staring up at them from an avalanche zone.

Note: Earlier this summer, my husband and I unexpectedly found ourselves needing to use a chunk of vacation time. The situation called for an epic road trip across the wilds of Washington, Canada and Montana. Here, in four parts, are the highlights.

Olympic National Park is only a few hours from our Oregon home, yet until this summer, we’d never been. Did we think that it was too far? That it wouldn’t be worth it? Whatever the reason, we were repentant even before we actually entered the park boundaries. All it took was a glimpse of snow-capped peaks beckoning in the distance and we realized the error of our ways. 

First look at Olympic’s mountains. Yes, this was taken through a windshield.

These days, the damp and beautiful Olympic Peninsula might be better known as the home of the Twilight series than the home of a national park (and if you’re not familiar with Twilight, skip to the next section). Nowhere was that more evident than Forks, the little town Stephenie Meyer implausibly turned into a stop on every teenage girl’s bucket list. Groups posed at the “Forks Welcomes You” sign, the high school, the hospital. As we waited at a stoplight, a girl in a Twilight shirt and a middle-aged woman, presumable her mother, clutching a Twilight map crossed the street in front of us.

First Beach, on the La Push reservation, was similarly populated – except here, werewolves, not vampires, decorated signs (again, this is a Twilight reference, apologies). It was impossible not to mock things like “Jacob Black’s Fireworks Stand,” but my laughter faded when we reached the coast. All those times Bella complains about the backwaters of Forks and La Push, she neglects to mention part of it is in a national park – it’s freaking beautiful.

First Beach. No bare-chested would-be werewolves sighted.

Of course, many of the beachgoers had obviously been drawn there by Meyer. I saw a man pick up his teenage daughter, who had a leg in a cast, and carry her down to the beach. Now that, I thought, is love.

We spent a few days exploring the beaches, forests and mountains, but as alluring as the idea of sexy vampires and sexier werewolves were, we had many miles left to go. A ferry ride across the choppy Puget Sound later, we were across the border in Victoria. 

I was ready to stand on solid ground, but not ready to let go of the feeling of mystery we’d had in Olympic. As the sun started its downward slide, we plastered stickers on our chests and joined a large group of people for a Ghostly Walk. Two guides traded off telling us about macabre incidents in Victoria’s past, from gruesome murders to horrific car crashes, and the spirits that couldn’t seem to let go. Cheesy? Perhaps. But it was also a surprisingly good time. Even if the supernatural had been left out, it still would have been a fascinating tour of the seedier parts of the city’s history.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, this time of year can be a little depressing. More often than not, it’s raining, and the brief appearances by the sun serve mostly to remind us how little we’ve seen it. It’s exactly how people think of the Pacific Northwest: Gray, wet and cool.

Fortunately, we’re creeping ever closer to summer, which is anything but gray, wet or cool. People from other parts of the country tend to be unaware of what a summer in Oregon or Washington is like. I could give you the climate data, but it’s much easier to simply say it’s glorious.

Rain? No. Sun? All day. Temps? Warm, but generally below anything starting with a 9. Excepting higher elevations, there aren’t even many thunderstorms (a plus or minus, depending on your preference). Like the residents of the PNW, July, August and September are very accommodating.

But note that June does not make that list. June is not a favorite month in these parts. The month that sounds like a nice older woman is actually quite a cruel mistress, offering any number of warm, sunny days, but also dishing out punishment in the form of rain, wind or hail. Woe is the school child who thinks the end of the school year equates to summer weather, or the bride who thinks the official change of the season means her outdoor wedding will be mild and precipitation-free. June offers enough heat to convince us to put away our sweaters and flannel (it’s true, some of us do still wear it) in favor of tank tops and sandals, then it breaks our spirits with weather left over from the stunted month of February.

Hang around the west side of Oregon long enough, and you’ll learn the unofficial start date of summer: July 4. That, the old-timers say, is when you can count on the rain and clouds to be gone. After July 4, you can plan a barbecue, a river float or a picnic without fear of forgetting a raincoat. And I have to say that in the six years I’ve been living here, I’ve found this local adage to be true.