Gardyloo

Not my picture, but I've seen this many times -



For what it's worth, Mt. Hood is my favorite for photography (Mt. Rainier in second place) due to Hood's Fuji-like symmetry.

From the floor of the Hood River Valley (a magical place) in the spring -



From the UO Medical School in Portland (a bit enlarged due to long-lens compression) -

an_asker

Thanks for the info - appreciate it. I was hoping that I had seen Mt. St. Helens and that maybe you'd misidentified it. Didn't realize you're from right around that area!

With that being the case though, could you identify the peak that I was unable to identify - in an earlier post on this thread? That photo was taken on the outbound leg, just before we landed in Seattle!

Gardyloo

Pretty sure it's Mount Baker, which is around 100 miles north of Seattle, close to the Canadian border. You probably saw it while turning base for your approach to SEA.

Here it is as seen from the Skagit Valley, an hour north of Seattle -



...and from West Seattle, with our wee Lady Liberty at Alki Beach

adampenrith

great TR awesome to see how easy it is to do Alaska independently

an_asker

Thanks for the compliments!

All it takes is a "pioneer" or two who's been there before you, to get tips from. In the age of the internet, one can always research out specific accommodation needs at the destination area, and reserve them as well. We lucked out as a good friend had been to Alaska a few years ago; besides, I asked around folks here as well as on a couple of other forums. So, all in all, it was a neat experience. Like I always say, planning is one third of the fun - being there is another third, and reminiscing is the final third :-)

For Australia (last year) as well, I did almost all my research exclusively online. In addition to the places we ended up visiting, I even had alternative options for our visit scouted out. Having a friend in Sydney helped (for Sydney), but that was specifically for the Blue Mountains, which also we could've done by ourselves - though we would've likely needed more time.

an_asker

It is funny to see little Lady Liberty! Didn't know Seattle had one (just like Paris does!).

adampenrith

We are great independent travellers - prefer not to do any tours unless its a historic house etc, when a tour guide is invaluable. We had an amazing individual tour of Sandringham House last year which way exceeding any expectations we had.

Blue Mountains - easy to do on your own - but then I live on the edge of the mountains so know them very well, I also spend quite a bit of my professional life dealing with lost and stranded bushwalkers

an_asker

Our issue with Blue Mountains was not about getting lost (we were not going hiking anyway!); it had more to do with the limited amount of time we had available, and taking public transportation would've given us not much time to do anything. As it happened, my Sydney-based friend took us in his van to the Katoomba area which made the trip a breeze. We rode the funicular, the aerial ropeway and the gondola (I always keep mixing up my terminology on those!) as well - it was a very cold day and we even had some really really light snow flurries (late August).