Flaming Geyser State Park
Jun. 22nd, 2020 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
I've been driving past the signs for Flaming Geyser State Park for the last 13 years or so as I hurtled down highway 169 to Mount Rainier National Park. Everything I read about it said it wasn't that exciting. The Flaming Geyser of the name is a methane seep that a man hit while drilling for coal circa 1900. In the 1920s, the flame regularly stood 6-8 feet tall and people travelled for many miles to see it.
Then someone dynamited the seep in the 1930s and then the authorities capped it for safety in the 1960s, and when lit the flame now reaches around 6 inches high. Not quite the draw that it once was. The reports said the surrounding park was pleasant. So I've been driving past the sign year after year and ignoring it on my way to better places.
Now in the time of covid, pleasant and unspectacular is exactly what I'm looking for. Spectacular places draw crowds. So today I finally took that right turn off highway 169.
The park is mainly forested with some meadows, and sits on the Green River. The meadow areas were lovely, full of wildflowers.
Trail through the woods, with two western red cedars framing the entrance to a glade.
The Green River, in various moods. You can't actually see the river that much from a lot of the trails; it's more often a sound beyond the trees. But when you can get to the banks, it's pretty.
On a gorgeous, hot sunny Monday, the park was as empty as I could have hoped. The areas around the car parks had groups of people with small children, predictably, but once I got more than a hundred metres from parking, the place was basically empty. I think I met three small groups of people out on the wooded trails. Exactly what I went looking for!
Then someone dynamited the seep in the 1930s and then the authorities capped it for safety in the 1960s, and when lit the flame now reaches around 6 inches high. Not quite the draw that it once was. The reports said the surrounding park was pleasant. So I've been driving past the sign year after year and ignoring it on my way to better places.
Now in the time of covid, pleasant and unspectacular is exactly what I'm looking for. Spectacular places draw crowds. So today I finally took that right turn off highway 169.
The park is mainly forested with some meadows, and sits on the Green River. The meadow areas were lovely, full of wildflowers.
Trail through the woods, with two western red cedars framing the entrance to a glade.
The Green River, in various moods. You can't actually see the river that much from a lot of the trails; it's more often a sound beyond the trees. But when you can get to the banks, it's pretty.
On a gorgeous, hot sunny Monday, the park was as empty as I could have hoped. The areas around the car parks had groups of people with small children, predictably, but once I got more than a hundred metres from parking, the place was basically empty. I think I met three small groups of people out on the wooded trails. Exactly what I went looking for!
no subject
Date: 2020-06-23 07:35 am (UTC)I'm still astonished people are allowed to bring domestic pets into national and state parks over there, and are allowed to let them off leash (or that's at least tolerated.)
no subject
Date: 2020-06-23 02:16 pm (UTC)Dogs are banned completely in all National Parks, and I don't recall ever seeing one. In Washington State parks, the law is that all pets must be on a leash, but there are rarely any park rangers around to enforce it. Somehow the state parks don't get quite the budget that some city police departments do....
no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-26 05:37 am (UTC)