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Spring is here but wallets stuffed with cash are not.
Now is the time to start planning for the world-famous Grays Harbor Shorebird Festival.
TROUT LAKE — It's called Lost Meadow, and under 2 feet of snow it's just a wide, white flat marked by elk droppings and a few scraggly pines and firs.
MOUNT BACHELOR — They can often be seen in the slopestyle area from the Pine Mountain chairlift, impossibly young snowboarders twisting their bodies in unimaginable ways as they soar insanely high off a tabletop jump.
Last year's outrageously good fishing has toned down to simply good fishing for porky rainbows in the Columbia River waters of Lake Rufus Woods.
SKAGIT COUNTY — In previous years, bird watchers who were football fans had to make a choice between the Super Bowl and the Upper Skagit Bald Eagle Festival.
Although it generally basks in sunshine among sparkling peaks on the east slope of the Cascades, a fine trail system overlooking Lake Chelan tends to be in the shadow of the region's better-known Nordic skiing destinations.
BEND, Ore. — The ominous sound of the ice expanding and contracting beneath our feet came every few minutes or so, at random. It was hard to ignore because it sounded distinctly like cracking.
BEND, Ore. — OK, so the Deschutes River Trail in Central Oregon isn't exactly a secret. Tourists crowd the popular trail in the summertime, making weekend traffic jams commonplace on the scenic path. But fall might be the best time of year to hop on a bike and ride the river trail.
•What: It's now easy to find the once-obscure Bottle Beach State Park.