Pacific destinations in the USA

Sierra Nevada, California

Ice carved a hall of granite and left the water falling.

37.7° N · 119.6° WOpen plate →

Redwood National and State Parks, California

A forest that drinks the Pacific fog.

41.2° N · 124.0° WOpen plate →

Santa Lucia Range, Central Coast, California

Where the continent ends in a long green fall to the sea.

36.3° N · 121.8° WOpen plate →

Olympic National Park, Washington

A green hush that never quite dries.

47.9° N · 123.9° WOpen plate →

Cascade Range, Oregon

A mountain that became a bowl of impossible blue.

42.9° N · 122.1° WOpen plate →

John Day Fossil Beds, Oregon

A hillside painted by climates that no longer exist.

44.7° N · 120.3° WOpen plate →

Washington

A country of hills that look poured, not built.

46.7° N · 117.2° WOpen plate →

Cascade Range, Washington

A volcano wearing a meadow like a collar.

46.9° N · 121.8° WOpen plate →

Skagit country, Washington

The American Alps, still mostly empty of roads.

48.8° N · 121.3° WOpen plate →

Sierra Nevada / Carson Range, California / Nevada

A high blue bowl the Sierra could not quite drain.

38.9° N · 120.0° WOpen plate →

Eastern Sierra, near Lee Vining, California

A pale inland sea planted with stone trees.

38.0° N · 119.0° WOpen plate →

Western Sierra Nevada, California

Trees so large they reset your sense of scale.

36.5° N · 118.6° WOpen plate →

Crooked River, near Terrebonne, Oregon

A red wall the river decided to keep circling.

44.4° N · 121.1° WOpen plate →

Channeled Scablands, Washington

A flood that ended twelve thousand years ago, still falling.

46.7° N · 118.2° WOpen plate →

Southern Sierra Nevada, California

A Yosemite that kept the canyon and gave away the crowds.

36.8° N · 118.6° WOpen plate →

White Mountains, Inyo National Forest, California

A forest that has been dying, and living, for forty-five centuries.

37.4° N · 118.2° WOpen plate →

Shasta-Trinity National Forest, California

A mountain that stands alone and makes a sky to match.

41.4° N · 122.2° WOpen plate →

Willamette & Deschutes National Forests, Oregon

Three volcanoes standing like siblings over a fir sea.

44.1° N · 121.8° WOpen plate →

Steens Mountain, Oregon

A gorge a glacier carved into a desert mountain.

42.7° N · 118.6° WOpen plate →

Owyhee Canyonlands, Oregon

A gulch that grew a skyline.

43.3° N · 117.3° WOpen plate →

Owens Valley, below Mount Whitney, California

Granite that learned to sit still under the highest mountain.

36.6° N · 118.1° WOpen plate →

Lassen Volcanic National Park, California

A mountain that still remembers how to boil.

40.5° N · 121.5° WOpen plate →

Anacapa Island, off Ventura, California

The California that kept its wildness by sitting in the water.

34.0° N · 119.4° WOpen plate →

east of Steens Mountain, Oregon

A white floor under Oregon’s secret escarpment.

42.5° N · 118.5° WOpen plate →

Columbia River, Multnomah Falls to Rowena, Oregon / Washington

The river that opened the mountains to the sea.

45.6° N · 122.1° WOpen plate →

Johnston Ridge, Gifford Pinchot, Washington

A mountain that took its own top off, and is still writing the sequel.

46.2° N · 122.2° WOpen plate →

Shasta-Trinity NF, west of Weed, California

A dark cone the interstate looks at and keeps driving past.

41.4° N · 122.3° WOpen plate →

Castle Crags Wilderness, Shasta-Trinity NF, California

Granite towers the interstate only glances at.

41.2° N · 122.3° WOpen plate →

Medicine Lake Volcano, Modoc NF, California

A caldera lake the obsidian still keeps.

41.6° N · 121.6° WOpen plate →

Lava Beds National Monument, Modoc & Siskiyou, California

Black rock the tubes still keep cool.

41.7° N · 121.5° WOpen plate →

Trinity Divide, Shasta-Trinity NF, California

The quiet mountain that looks back at Shasta.

41.3° N · 122.5° WOpen plate →

Newberry National Volcanic Monument, Oregon

Two lakes in a caldera most people drive past.

43.7° N · 121.2° WOpen plate →

Mount Thielsen Wilderness, Umpqua NF, Oregon

A stone needle the lake still looks at.

43.2° N · 122.1° WOpen plate →

Three Sisters Wilderness, Deschutes NF, Oregon

A broken summit the wilderness still keeps.

44.1° N · 121.7° WOpen plate →

Sky Lakes Wilderness, Fremont-Winema NF, Oregon

The quiet cone between Shasta and Crater Lake.

42.4° N · 122.3° WOpen plate →

Diamond Peak Wilderness, Willamette & Deschutes NF, Oregon

A white roof the fir sea still hides.

43.5° N · 122.1° WOpen plate →

Pinnacles National Park, Gabilan Range, California

Rhyolite High Peaks over chaparral.

36.5° N · 121.2° WOpen plate →

Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, Oregon

Sea arches in a green Oregon cove.

42.2° N · 124.4° WOpen plate →

Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin, California

A headland that still feels like the continent’s end.

38.0° N · 123.0° WOpen plate →

Mount Adams Wilderness, Gifford Pinchot NF, Washington

A white cone over Bird Creek Meadows.

46.2° N · 121.5° WOpen plate →

Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, Siuslaw NF, Oregon

Fir headlands running south into a white sea.

44.3° N · 124.1° WOpen plate →

McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, California

Spring water falling into a teal bowl.

41.0° N · 121.7° WOpen plate →

Three Sisters Wilderness, Willamette NF, Oregon

White threads on a green lava wall.

44.2° N · 121.9° WOpen plate →

Silver Falls State Park, near Silverton, Oregon

A long white drop into a fir canyon.

44.9° N · 122.7° WOpen plate →

Ecola State Park, Tillamook Head, Oregon

Spruce headlands and a black rock in a gray sea.

45.9° N · 124.0° WOpen plate →

Miners Ridge, Glacier Peak Wilderness, Washington

A tarn holding Glacier Peak.

48.2° N · 121.0° WOpen plate →

Lost Coast, King Range National Conservation Area, California

California’s roadless coast.

40.0° N · 124.1° WOpen plate →

Willamette National Forest, Lane County, Oregon

A clear Cascade lake the highways miss.

43.7° N · 122.0° WOpen plate →

Lake County, Highway 395, Oregon

The long rim over a bitter Great Basin lake.

42.6° N · 120.2° WOpen plate →