Ryan Cooper

Some quick snaps of my visit to Craters of the Moon after I interviewed the rangers. It's a giant volcanic plain—here are the kind of rocks one sees: Panorama: A volcanic throat: Which direction do you reckon the wind blows most of the time? The next few are all from a walk through one of the partially collapsed lava tubes, called Indian Tunnel: Finally, a very pretty sunset!

I was passing through the Columbia River Gorge very quickly, but made some time to stop and take a few action shots in Hood River. First, stand-up paddleboarding is apparently quite the thing: But it was a bit windy for that in the main channel. Saw a couple windsurfers, which used to be the most popular thing there: But the most popular sport, by far, was kiteboarding. Witness this kind of awkward shot: Also, too: More sweet tricks: The cool thing about kiteboarding was you could actually hang from the kite for quite a while. This lady's trick was just jumping way high and hanging in the air for about 15 seconds: I just wanted to get the bridge in the background here, as well as a sense of the size of the kites. They're big!

At my hotel in Troutdale a couple days ago there were a few folks staying that had just finished a Buick car show. I took some snaps just for fun: This lady's car was definitely the coolest: As shown by her first place trophy!

This is nuts.

Here are some snaps from my trip up to Mt St Helens. First, a view from about 2/3rds of the way up the road to Johnston Ridge Observatory. The most remarkable thing about my visit was how impressive the magnitude of the eruption remains were, and I tried to capture a sense of that. Here on the right (obviously) there is the mountain, and that hump on the left is Johnston ridge. The gray area in the middle is where a lot of the mountain went. It's a bit tough to see, but the valley in between the two used to be roughly 600 feet deeper. Here's a bit of a melodramatic video about the eruption, but it does have a nice (I believe genuine) slideshow of pictures of the scale of the initial landslide. Also don't miss this great set of contemporary pictures. Here's Coldwater Lake, which is on the other side of Johnston Ridge from the mountain. It's a lovely little place created by the massive sediment dam of the eruption. Here's a panorama I too...

I'll have more to say about this later, but for now just read this .

Here are some things I discovered during the course of my reporting here. First, if you need some colossal gun safes (or absolutely any outdoor equipment, of any kind I could imagine anyway), Bob's Sporting Goods is the place for you: Plaza Jalisco is a good hearty meal. Seems a bit pricey at first for only about average Tex-Mex, but the portions are served on what appear to be former oceangoing vessels, the salsa is quite good, and they have free dessert with every meal! I'll be working on my taco platter until Monday at least. Also, Longview has the biggest board game store I've ever seen, called Dangerous Gentlemen . Worth a stop in for a chat and a marvel. Detail: The local mall has fallen on hard times, so they've got the local library to move in. I stopped and chatted with some of the library staff, and it was the busiest venue in the whole place: Here's a sundial in the downtown local park: A historic local hotel: ...

Howdy folks, apologies for the long silence here. I've been meaning to update but haven't gotten around to it. Anyways, I do at least have a decent excuse: I'm working on a massive project about the economic benefits of protected lands. I'm on a paid reporting jaunt from Washington, through Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado where I'll be looking at various national parks, monuments, and forests. Further updates will follow, but for now I've got to get to sleep.

I think this one is the best thus far, really some thorough research on display here: