Pacific Coast - Washington & Oregon

After exploring Seattle for 3 days, I finally met up with Maren, with whom I will be traveling the West Coast, including Los Angeles, for the next 6 weeks.

Our first stop: Forks, which some of you may know from the movie Twilight. However, neither filming nor shooting took place in Forks or La Push Beach, but these places served as inspiration for the books.

On our way, we also stopped at Rialto Beach! A beautiful beach! The Pacific is a stark contrast to the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico - a lot of rocks and black sand.

Our first little hike took place in the HOH Rain Forest National Forest. It's exactly what I imagined a rainforest to be like!

We ended the day with a breathtaking sunset at Ruby Beach and a shooting star on our way.

In Aberdeen, we found out that Kurt Cobain's childhood home is located there, so we made a quick detour to visit.

Afterwards, we visited the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. It looked very similar to the hike we did the day before. In the evening, we crossed the border from Washington to Oregon.

The next day, we went to Ecola State Park and then to Cannon Beach, where scenes from Twilight were actually filmed.

Our next stop was Portland! This was our first time 'couchsurfing'. The city has certain sights to see compared to other cities, as well as several bridges and a very, very nice weekend market.

We then went to the Mt. Hood National Forest. We circled around Teillium Lake, but we couldn't see Mount Hood on that day. So, we also went to Tamanawas Falls.

The next day was very spectacular! We hiked 15km in the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Mount St. Helens last erupted in 1980. During this hike, we were very lucky: we had a view of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, and Mt. St. Helens! A very impressive sight! We also had the chance to see a mountain goat.

Afterwards, we walked 2km through a lava cave, this experience is indescribable!!

Our journey took us further and further towards California. But before that, we wanted to visit Crater Lake, although at -3 degrees and with only about 2 meters of visibility, we only drove around the volcano.