11/23, Wednesday. Bad traffic like a typical Friday afternoon. Arrived at Altimer Cabin in the rain. Nicely appointed cabin in the woods, few minutes drive east of Ashford. Amenities include a hot tub, outdoor grill, well stocked kitchen, privacy. Cooked dinner: pasta with mussels and wild caught fish, home grown tomatoes. I brought Reisling from Mosel. Too sweet.11/24. Thanksgiving day. Rain in lower elevation, snow higher. Two snow plowers driving up and down constantly. More cars than I expected at Paradise parking lot, on this snowy turkey/football day. Not surprising, most visitors are immigrants. I saw a lot of Chinese, many of whom dressed handsomely, but unsuitable for the weather. The visitor center smelled like brunch: a group of Latinos occupied two tables with piles of food. It's good to see people spend their holiday in national park.
Hiked a 1-mile loop to Myrtle Falls. Very small. No icicles that I hope to see. Too warm. Just about freezing. Snow is powdery. Very light. Even with snowshoes I sank to the bottom. I'm getting to heavy. Visibility was poor. No view to speak of.
Narada Falls had about 5 cars in the parking lot. Bigger waterfall, but uglier: thin and dirty looking. No more snow on ground at the bridge across Nisqually River.
The trailhead of Comet Falls is just west of Christine Falls, very pretty but small cascades in a narrow gorge. One car there. Trail started in woods, mud, then sloshing snow. Even no view to speak of, you can here the pounding of water that forms Christine Falls, and a couple of glimpse of the gorge. A mile or so later, emerged out of the thick woods. Walking along a valley, made very pretty by the powdery snow, about a food deep. No one else had trekked here, all pristine white snow. Comet Falls is 3 tiers, not what I remembered one straight and big waterfall. Very pretty here. A single log bridge looks sketchy under snow. The photo taken by my phone at low light made doesn't do justice to the serenity around. Had to use headlamp hiking out in the woods. Slippery. I fell twice. Back to parking lot ~5pm.The gate was locked when we arrived at Longmire. Walked to the hotel asking for help. The lady at the front desk keeps a logbook. She wrote down my license number, address, phone #, car license plate, and time of exit. Took my driver's license and gave me a key to unlock the gate. This lady was also helping in the dining room. It was very busy with Thanksgiving buffer and dinner guest. A lot of people. Had to wait around for her to show up. It's warm and festival. So I don't mind the wait too much. It's good to see that the business is doing well here.
Dinner tonight is roasted duck with apple and lavender. Potato cooked in duck fat, and sauté haricot-vert as sides. Apple cider for drink. Too sweet.11/25. Almost no traffic in the morning. I was early for my 1pm bus to Canada. Chatted with a black guy having his lunch in the food court of Uwajimaya. He's an economist. Articulate. Talks with vigor and conviction, sometimes with bits of food flying over my side, 2 seats from him. I don't remember everything he said, all with data and reason, and I'm sure glad that he decided to talk to me. Here are some. US$ is going to loose over 3/4 of value as soon as it looses its default currency status of petroleum. Iraq is now the largest oil reserve in the world, because little was excavated. No oil pipeline were laid in southern Iraq for the last 50 years, even though price was going up elsewhere. There, literally oil is seeping out of group, can be bought as cheap as $4 a barrel. That's why, US invaded Iraq, after Saudi and Kuwait depleted a large portion of their reserve. He said US economy is going downhill for quite sometime. Even California, the flagship of US' top economy can not compare with much smaller Scandinavian countries. He said I made a terrible mistake closing my French bank account when I left France 10+ years ago, because every European bank allows you to buy 20+ other currencies or trade stocks in different markets with ease. A Luxembourg or Swiss bank may provide access to around 80 currencies.
