Great Northwest Tours

About five weeks ago you published information about a new tour company doing day trips out of Seattle, Adventure Outdoors with Harry Ellis. I took three of the tours and they were simply marvelous. A two-day tour of the Olympic Peninsula through rain forests, Rialto Beach where the massive driftwood has to be seen to be believed, where seals fed close to shore and the sunset wouldn’t quit; $129.

The second tour was to Mt. Rainier. We hiked to Panorama Point where we sat amid multicolored flowers and ate our lunch. Chipmunks begged for crumbs. We could look down into 200-foot crevasses and up to heights where icicles 10 to 12 feet long hung from the rocks. The trip lasted from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; $40.

On the third tour, off we went up the Cascade Pass trail, a narrow path with 38 switchbacks passing through primeval forests, over small streams, past melting ice and across a gravel slide area. A doe and her fawn passed within a pebble’s toss of us and paused to look back for a few moments. Animals and humans were caught up in a magic moment so lovely, so perfect; $45 for this great trip, from 7 a.m. to 7:45 p.m.

I’m a 60-year-old grandmother and I kept up with the 25- to 40-year-olds even when my lungs felt like twin thimbles and my knees turned to Jell-O. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Harry Ellis, Adventures Outdoors, 5354 Ruby Place N.E., Bainbridge Island, Wash. 98110, phone (206) 842-3189.

VIRGINIA S. RHODES

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