the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

��Travel further nOI and you can still experience a rising from • deep blue fjords, first descents for powder·hungry snowboarders. To get a bird's·eye view of the rainforest and find out how long this backcountry playground will be just that, I caught a ride with LightHawk, an aerial­ environmental organization, which turns a passion for flying, into protection for Cascadia's wild places. "Its hard to see other planes flying in this much cloud cover at low altitudes, but in-air collisions are rare," says LightHawk pilot Mike Moore as he gently pulls back on the throttle of the four-seat 1978 Cessna 180 Skywagon seaplane. Moore is addicted to flying seaplanes and the thousands of islands, inlets and lakes to which the Cessna's pontoons grant him access. LightHawk wants me to see the difference between an undisturbed temperate rainforest and the scraps' of land they are fighting for in the US and Canada. I want to experience this coast while it is still wild and not subdued by the logging, development and traffic jams that increasingly clutter my home state of Washington. "The lifevests are beneath your seat." Moore says as a sudden pocket of wind drops the tiny plane quickly. I hope my Dramamine holds out. 26 JIll • • • Adventure seekers flock to the two countries, two states, one province, 10 national parks and more than 3,000 miles of mountainous coastline that make the Pacific Northwest a year-round outdoor paradise. Around 12.8 million people visited Washington last year for a short escape, and many never left. Greater Seattle's population alone has increased 22.5 percent since 1987 and over 300 new residents arrive in Washington each day. It sounds like a lot of bodies, but in this ecoregion known as Cascadia is a place where you can still discover genuine "firsts, "-the Great Bear Rainforest. Go to Seattle with your bags, boards and kayaks, then jump on the first seaplane headed north for Canada. In Great Bear, on the British Columbia coast just south of Alaska, there are hundreds of inlets that have yet to be paddled, and countless mountain peaks that would be trophy climbs for mountaineers or LightHawk began in 1979 as one man's mission to save the Gunnison River in Colorado from a proposed dam. Michael Stewart borrowed a plane and successfully convinced the media and local politicians that the dam was poorly planned. LightHawk has since grown to an organization of more than 145 volunteer pilots flying around to monitor environmental change from Alaska to Chile. Each mission attempts to give politicians, community leaders, conservationists and journalists a new perspective on environmentally sensitive regions. The drone of the propellers is constant on the four-hour flight from Seattle to the northern British Columbia coast. ascaf

• Cover