One of my favorite Who songs is “The Seeker”. The song was released as a song in March 1970, or many years before I was born. But it’s about seeking something and never truly being able to find it. It’s one of the best Who songs, and you should listen to it right now:

Or maybe you’d prefer the Pearl Jam cover? I saw them play this song about a week later in St. Louis at a the Fabulous Fox Theatre, a fantastic place to see a show. Death Cab For Cutie opened that show, and I found them boring. Sorry folks! But Pearl Jam covering The Who was not remotely surprising, as Eddie Vedder may very well be the biggest Who fan on the planet. I’ve seen Pearl Jam play at least three different Who songs over the years, and they’ve done far more than that. Anyway, here’s PJ’s version:

On this very same subject (restlessness, not Pearl Jam or The Who), there’s also a line from a Wild Flag song that I can identify with so much:

You can listen to this song, which absolutely kicks ass, here:

You should always expect me to lead with a couple of great songs, and then tie that into the subject of this very essay. So here goes:

No matter how much I know about hiking, and about trails in the Pacific Northwest, even I sometimes have trouble finding the best places to go. If that is surprising, it shouldn’t be.

I used the superscript there to underline my point. It really can be difficult sometimes!

We planned a trip over Memorial Day weekend to the Yakima area. This is not a familiar area for us, but we figured we should try going somewhere new - and, truth be told, we planned our trip only a month or so before, so every other campsite in the entire PNW was already booked. So it was off to Yakima! It was a weekend of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

First, the good: I finally made it back to Cathedral Falls at the very northern end of the Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument. I did this hike the first time when I was finishing up work on the second edition of Off the Beaten Trail, and the Cathedral Falls hike is a star attraction of that book. The hike was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it, with ancient forest and several waterfalls. The eponymous Cathedral Falls was the star of the hike:

After our hike, we drove over White Pass to our campsite along the Tieton River. We arrived to find that our campsite, despite being along the river, was so small that we could barely fit our tent in the site. And despite being along the river, the river was not visible to a large amount of brush blocking our view. It was disappointing.

And yes, just so we’re clear, I realize that this is the definition of a First World Problem.

On the second day of our trip, we planned on hiking along the South Fork of the Tieton River into the Goat Rocks Wilderness. This is usually done as more of a backpacking trip but we were not going to backpack, so we only had time for a day hike. We figured we would get some good views of the Goat Rocks and have a relatively easy day hike.

There were no good views, even despite being in the mountains, with glaciated peaks not very far away. It was still beautiful of course, but it was not the hike that I promised. This was the best view:

There are no mountain views on the Cathedral Falls hike, and there were no views on this hike surrounded by mountains. And so we were camping near both the Goat Rocks and Mount Rainier, and not terribly far from Mount Adams, and still had not had any mountain views on our trip.

Day 3 promised a new and different hike, in the Ahtanum State Forest southwest of Yakima, an area that Wendy nor I knew anything about. It took us nearly an hour of navigating backroads to reach the trailhead, which was located near a horse camp. As it turned out, horses, mountain bikers, and dirt bikes use the trail network in the forest far more than hikers. We only saw a few other hikers over our hike, a loop that totaled 10.2 miles. If you’d like to see my GPS track, here is a link. Don’t forget your Discover Pass, like we did! We were lucky to not get a ticket.

As it was, the hike was mostly beautiful. The terrain reminded me of the area around the Badger Creek Wilderness and Fifteenmile Creek, one of my favorite places. Here are a few photos to give you an idea about this hike:

As you can see, this was a beautiful hike - but once again, we found ourselves in the mountains without any view of the surrounding mountains. The entry for this hike on AllTrails promised mountain views. There were no views to be found, and after hiking a long loop on a hot day, that was a major bummer no matter how beautiful the rest of the hike was. As it turns out, the best views are several miles up the road at the (unfortunately-named) Eagle’s Nest. We did not know that, of course.

So we had a great trip, but we never saw the mountains. It reminds me of an old French adage:

The rough translation here is that “a dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman missing an eye”, which, if we’re being honest, says so, so, so very much about the French. And if you’re wondering: cheese is not part of most French desserts, but rather eaten in wedges and slices on its own at the same time as dessert.

Our weekend just didn’t feel complete, but that’s the way it happens sometimes.

Planning hikes can be hard work if you don’t just want to do the same things over and over again. I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest for almost 30 years of my life, I own literally dozens of guidebooks, a couple hundred maps, and I am very proficient at using both the internet and satellite imagery to find new, interesting places. And even then, it doesn’t always turn out the way I want or expect it to. Sometimes you find places that sound great on paper but don’t hit the spot when you’re actually there.

And yet, sometimes you also find exactly what you’re looking for:

Writing hiking guidebooks is an excuse for me to go and do all of this work for you, so you can go do so many beautiful hikes without needing to do all the grunt work that I do. I put literally thousands of hours into my books and I’ve barely made any profit at all. So it goes!

If you’d love to support my work, feel free to spread the word about it. I always appreciate the social media support, as it helps me advertise my books. I am partnering with Buy Me A Coffee to help raise money for my various outdoor projects, into which I put so much love. Here is a link if you’d love to support me. Eventually I may offer some exclusive products here, but this is my first time actually asking for money. I am not good at this. I am sure some of you can understand!

Thank you for supporting me on this journey. You can join me on a few Mazamas hikes this summer if you like. Here’s my profile! I do not have any hikes on the calendar but will be adding a few over the next few weeks.

The second edition of 101 Hikes in the Majestic Mount Jefferson Region is rolling along, and I am looking forward to sharing more updates with you soon. Now that the school year is over (although I am still teaching a class this summer), I have more time. I know I say this all the time, but expect to hear from me more this summer.

Thank you, as always. I may be restless, but I feel pretty good today.

Matt