Tour traverses lush grazing land and crosses the swirling Toutle River. Through the 1940s truck gardens lined the valley bottomlands and were divided from the forest only by the roadway, along which rumble heavy log trucks loaded with forest giants.

The highway rises to a terrace above the valley floor; below is a panorama of river country. The broad willow-bordered Cowlitz, widening at every tributary, flows with graceful bends and curves, breaking into rapids, then slowing into a smooth mirror. Sandbars occasionally thrust above the surface.