Late'a vandhaalum latest'a vanthurukiren !

It has been a while since I blogged but better late then never.

Last to last week was this memorable trip to Snoqualmie falls. The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington State extends more than 140 miles along the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains from the Canadian border to the northern boundary of Mt. Rainier National Park. It's a 70 mile drive from our place with most of the course on a major interstate, I90. I had actually not planned the trip but, was offered a seat in one of my friend's car on saturday morning and I humbly accepted the offer.

We started out at around 10:30am, the drive was pretty smooth with vasu at the steering wheel and the rest of us sitting back and enjoying the scenic mounts and valleys en route, with some lousy old hindi song playing in the background. There was little drama when another car crew that was supposed to follow us took the wrong exit had to take a detour to ultimately reach the destination, but, that's quite an essential aspect of driving in this country, particularly on long unknown routes.

We reached Snoqualmie at around 12:00am. We were welcomed by a cold weather with a temperature of around 38 degree F. as we stepped out of the car. I was actually not ready for that kinda of a weather in terms of outter wear. I was dressed easy in my black cardigans(doesn't open in the front, though) and a pair of jeans. We waited for a while untill the other car crew joined us. The actuall falls was quite close to the parking lot, that was surprising, I was expecting to do some treking and before actually getting close to the falls. But the place was thoroughly constructed bearing visitor's convenience in mind. Well sometimes it's good but sometimes it beats the thrill that you normally get out of actually treking or wading through natural trails.

As we got near this falls there was this mild rain which was actually not rain but the spray of water from the falls. We were actually viewing the falls from the top, should be roughly 100-200 feet from the base of the falls. I even managed to capture a small rainbow that emerged out of nowhere, quite amazing to see a rainbow up close, can u imagine a 360 degree view of a rainbow at about 10 feet from the ground, yeah..that was what we were treated to. I was dripping wet because of the spray from the falls and my hands were going numb.

Quickly we found a trail notice board which would lead us up to the river. We took the slippery trail, we were not equiped with the righ kind of shoes but, we managed to reach the river bed without any unfortunate incidents. The contructed trail ended at a point from where we could see the falls and the river bed was atleast 20-30 feet below. Some of decided to take a natural path down to the river bed, was quite risky but, was certainly inviting.
Slowly myself and Ramamseshan got down with our expensive digital cameras precariously clinging on to us, Sajan and Sherin followed our footsteps and within 5 minutes we were at the river bed. The river looked and sounded furious, every few second there would be a splash with the river hitting some of the rocks on the banks warning us of its might. After settling at one point it was time to put our digicam to full use. I clicked some snaps, took some took some videos of the raging river. While I was religiously clicking some pics Ramaseshan got to another spot along the river and towards the falls. We soon joined him, and god oh. mighty we were like 50 feet away from the base of the falls and the view was thoroughly breathtaking. We could barely hear each one speak for the sound of the falls hitting the ground and the river gushing was deafening. The deafening sound surrounded me in a soothing sea of serenity, cannot be explained, must be experienced. Once again another photo session, this time we put our creative caps on and tried different shots like professional photographers. Well I must say, everybody around me could see the next PC Sriram in the making :-)

Suddenly knock knock...! who is it ? it was nature, nature's call of the first kind, I had to quickly release the pressure that got built over the last 20 minutes, so quickly disappered into the woods to take a leak, well not a leak but to flush the payload out of my bladder. Soon found a suitable place, looked like a cave, quickly unzipped and opened the gates to ultimate relief and peace of mind that's better than any of the earthly pleasures. Out came the payload like a raging river trying to free itself through a half a centimeter hole, with a furious hiss that valiantly compteted against the sound of the falls. The best part, this place was freaking cold should have been very close to zero. I could literally see fumes emerging from my release, it was the first time I was seeing something like that :-) Mother nature humbly accepted the moist warmth from my gesture.

We spent nearly 40 minutes near around the place and started our trek back to base, carefully negotiating the seemingly hostile terrain, like tom cruise climbing those rocks in "Mission Impossible". By this time, I had mud all over the back of my pants and had put my camera to the maximum abuse, but luckily it survived. We reached our car and it was time for lunch, I was exhausted and was extremely hungry. We were treated with some Idlies, sambar, curd rice, garlic pickle and cakes. What more can you ask, it was a sumptuous lunch that you can never dream of having at snoqualmie over a Nissan Altima hood, otherwise.

Our next stop was a huge mall/factory outlet at Northbend, as always we took the wrong exit and a little drama before we actually got to the right place. This place is so freaking organised that if you make a mistake there are no shortcuts to fix it. As I mentioned, this is a huge shopping mall and it's like going around the outer "prakaram" of Madurai Meenakshi temple. We did some shopping, I was doing more than usual but didn't know why. Actually the group disintegrated, I was the odd man out in the group (the proud Bachelor) so I had to become a parasite and held on to the Ramaseshan-Lavanya group. Managed to have some capaccino (yeah...big deal the same f*&%#&# coffe which the Americans refuse to believe in) was quite soothing for that horribly cold weather. We all assembled back at our cars after shopping non stop for around 4 hours, a quick stop at Burger king, where the girl that took the order threw a drink free for me..don't know why :-) believe me I was not holding a board that said "Please help, Homeless, Single Father, God Bless". Anyways, like what Goundamani says "Free'a koduthaa phenol kooda kudippaan" in the movie "Karagaattakaaran", I accepted the drink without the slightest hesitation.

We were all back home by I think 10:00PM, it turned out to be an eventfull day filled with fun. The last thing I remember doing on the day was to compile all those pleasant memoires that we captured early during the day and uploading it to my website.

Videos:

Shaky hands and horrible commentary
The raging river and once again horrible commentary
The crew
The Cave !!!! :-)

Photos :

Here !