181 replies to this topic

[Forward Scatter]

It looks like at least a year to rebuild the bridge & road. Yikes!

[seawolfe]

It looks like at least a year to rebuild the bridge & road. Yikes!

Went to Windy Ridge on Tuesday / Wednesday.  Forest Road 25 is finally being worked on from the Randle approach to Forest Road 99 that takes you to Windy Ridge.  There is a 30 minute wait time in order for truck and big equipment work to be done and also in order for a pilot car to escort a line of vehicles about 2 miles of work areas.  It is very slow going through the work area because of dips and gravel coverings.  This has probably cut down the number of visitors from what I saw.

 

Also, Forest Road 25 is not a complete route as the approach from Cougar is blocked because of a slide.  You can only go to Windy Ridge from US 12 at Randle.

 

Even so, a group of car enthusiasts came out on such a nice day!

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[OldNebulous]

Thanks for posting on the NW thread!  I'm envious of all those mountain pix and to learn where folks can go for better seeing. Even with forty years here, this winter seemed particularly gray and wet.  And I've been disappointed not to find any place on Vashon or somewhere fairly close to improve on my Bortle 7 West Seattle deck.  Gave away my 80mm Celestron achromat on a rough manual GEM, and a Meade DS114 on a motorized tripod that I could never figure out: visual astronomy got too frustrating with my age.  Trying some "cheap" EAA with a DwarfLab2 24mm system, which even has tracking and plate-solving!

 

1.  Big dipper on iPhone SE (no Night Mode);  2. M20 Trifid with my DwarfLab2 (two months ago, when I just got it and could barely use the app); 3. M11 Wild Duck Cluster, DwarfLab2 (also about two months ago)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[SteveRosenow]

Went to Windy Ridge on Tuesday / Wednesday.  Forest Road 25 is finally being worked on from the Randle approach to Forest Road 99 that takes you to Windy Ridge.  There is a 30 minute wait time in order for truck and big equipment work to be done and also in order for a pilot car to escort a line of vehicles about 2 miles of work areas.  It is very slow going through the work area because of dips and gravel coverings.  This has probably cut down the number of visitors from what I saw.

 

Also, Forest Road 25 is not a complete route as the approach from Cougar is blocked because of a slide.  You can only go to Windy Ridge from US 12 at Randle.

 

Even so, a group of car enthusiasts came out on such a nice day!

When you went, work was pretty bad on the 25 Road going up. I was just there two days ago. I arrived at Mount St. Helens mid-afternoon Wednesday and did a hike out to Harmony Falls (talk about brutal!) later that evening. On the drive up, however, I shot a video up on YouTube now, of the drive on the 99 Road.

On this last trip, there's no more delays as most of the "grunt" work of the road work in progress is by my estimation complete. I think all they're doing now is getting the asphalt ready to lay. I didn't see any pilot car escorts on this last trip both on the drive up Wednesday afternoon and on the drive back home the following day.

Those are super pix of those classics at the Smith Creek Viewpoint! 

I came into possession of yet another Meade here, a few weeks ago. It's one of the lower-end Go-To refractors on an Alt-Az mount (one of the DS-Series, white tube kind). One of these days I'm taking it down to Windy Ridge.

Here's one capture I got of my hike to Harmony Falls. 

Mount St. Helens - Harmony Falls Hike - 8-16-2023 by Steven Rosenow, on Flickr

[bluedandelion]

Hi Everyone,  Been keeping up with this thread from time to time, but its been a long time since I imaged or processed something. Here's the Bubble Nebula in HOO bi-color imaged last month during the New Moon from Goldendale.

 

Ajay

 

Larger size here

Edited by bluedandelion, 27 August 2023 - 11:34 PM.

[astronomania]

Nice one Ajay!

Glad you are still around !

[CTerry]

Just found this thread. and ill be keeping track hopefully. Ive been wondering how many PNWers are on here. Im down in Vancouver, Wa area, so not really the seattle / tacoma area mentioned earlier, but close enough i suppose. I wish there were more people and places around here that would do meets and events. Even smaller ones would be nice. Just be neat to setup and do some viewing or imaging with other enthusiasts on the weekends and whatnot.