To this east coast traveler, Oregon feels even more remote and wet in February. What I find: 111 inches of snow on the ground at Crater Lake; roiling seas and storms off the Pacific pounding away at rock-strewn beaches; rain, fog and a low-hanging cloud cover. Roads are closed. Here, far from the ski slopes and snowmobile trails, there’s a seasonal stillness punctuated by hotel and motel vacancy signs.

The road to Crater Lake is closed about 50 percent of the days in winter, but I lucked out. The sky was a startling blue and the glassy surface of the lake shifted from sapphire to deepspace black.

The following day on Mount Hood it is 62 degrees, zero wind, blinding sun. The ski instructors are wearing T-shirts.

No matter the time of year, Oregon beckons with its ragged, jagged Pacific coastline, sand dunes and sea lion caves, towering Cascade Range and stunning Columbia River Gorge. Waterfalls, fossil beds, lava fields, buttes, caves, canyons, forests, high desert country and grasslands await curious adventurers.

My solo expedition began in Portland, the city filmmaker Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) described as “its own universe.” Several of his idiosyncratic films (Elephant, The Last Days, Paranoid Park) were shot in and around Portland. With its sleek skyline, well-groomed parks and scenic waterfront, the city of 568,380 doesn’t appear an outpost, but on its streets, Portland’s independent culture springs to life: casual, vintage, hip, alternately funky and nerdy.

I hop in my rented Toyota Rav4 and cruise east through the fading light of a cloudy afternoon to the Columbia River Gorge and Hood River, where I cross into Washington and stop to capture the moment through the lens of my camera. A police officer in a black-and-white cruiser interrupts the solitude, shouting to call my attention to the posted “No Trespassing” sign.

“Two or three photographers have been killed here,” he says, adding with a slow smile, “We try to keep people alive.”

The Gorge, even on this slate-gray day, is grand with its sharp-rising basalt cliffs and thick forests of mosscovered white ash and towering firs. Falls rumble over jagged rocks as water plunges hundreds of feet. I return to Portland via State Route 14, following the river through twisting and turning S-curves across the rolling landscape and past the old, white-painted, steel truss Bridge of the Gods, with its total cantilever length of 1,131 feet.

The next morning I head south on Interstate 5 to Corvallis, then venture west to the coastal town of Newport, where a whale-bone sculpture and a Vietnam Memorial mark the beach access. Overcast skies, wind and a pungent mist of salt water greet me.

Approaching evening, I head south on the swerving Pacific Coast Highway toward the resort town of Florence. But first I stop at Seal Rock Beach to watch the sun set beyond the craggy rock outcroppings and crashing whitecapped waves.

I watch a dad trying to convince his young son it’s time to leave the beach, thick with small, smooth stones, but the boy is having too much fun tossing the rocks at the water. Seal Rock, a giant, moss-covered monolith, crouches within reach at low tide. I continue along the highway to a point where I pull over, turn off the engine, and listen to the crashing roar of the the black ocean.

I stop for dinner in Florence at the cozy Firehouse Restaurant, where firemen’s caps and T-shirts from all over the country adorn the walls. Business is slow. I overhear the co-owner, a stout man in his 60s, tell guests at a nearby table the opening of a casino nearby has impacted his bar business.

“I think it’s time to just go fish,” he says.

I drive east through the dark and drizzly evening along state highway 126 toward Eugene, listening to Carey and Lurrie Bell sing the blues. I arrive just as the drizzle turns to a steady, cold r ain.

The University of Oregon campus lies a mile or two south of downtown. East 13th Avenue, a typical collegetown main street, is lined with shabby coffee shops, Mexican take-out joints, used clothing outlets and the university corner bookstore. The streets all have designated lanes for cyclists. There should be lanes for runners and joggers, too — they’re everywhere. The city is one of the nation’s running capitals.

I’m on the road early the next morning bound for Crater Lake National Park. I decide to forego the easy route — I-5 — in favor of a shortcut to the north rim. The road is generally closed all winter, but I’m chancing it will be open today. I end up in the woods on an unplowed snow-packed road. I slowly maneuver the Rav4 up the road in low gear, then shift into reverse to blast through a snow bank and onto dry blacktop.

I reevaluate my decision and opt for the long, roundabout route, circling around the lake to the east and then up from the south — the only option in winter. Groves of thin aspens coated in snow form dense walls of crystal columns. The national park’s position at the crest of the Cascade Mountain Range results in tremendous snowfall — snow banks up to eight feet high line the road like a bobsled run.

The view from the rim 900 feet above the lake’s peacock-blue expanse has been known to bring visitors to tears. The opposite rim of the crater is almost six miles away. The lake, at a depth of more than 1,900 feet deep, holds the record as the deepest in the United States. Wearing sneakers — I didn’t have room to pack hiking boots — I clomp up a snow bank through knee-deep drifts to get a look. It’s about 29 degrees at high noon, but it doesn’t feel cold at all in the sun and clean air. I have the entire lake to myself. Evergreens are crushed by the weight of heavy snow, many almost doubled over at odd angles. Outstretched tree limbs form white skeletons. It’s Tranquility Base with three inches of fresh powder.

I coast almost the whole way down from the lake to S.R. 62, where I head east across flatlands. Connecting with US 97, I head north for the long stretch to Bend in search of a town I had read about in the Sunday Oregonian. Sisters (pop. 1,706), northwest of Bend at the base of the Three Sisters mountains in the Cascade Range, seems the perfect place to spend the night. I’m assigned guestroom No. 1 at the Five Pine Lodge and Conference Center. Open just one year, the red cedar log-and-stone structure has earned a reputation as a weekend retreat destination for welloff Portlanders.

The next morning I drive north through high desert country en route to Mount Hood. The landscape reminds me of northern Wyoming — brown hills, brush, ranches, sand and gravel. It is another sunny February day (the rule, not the exception, on this, the “dry side” of the Cascades), and Mount Hood rises 11,239 feet to a near-perfect peak straight in my sights more than 40 miles away.

In stark contrast to the stillness of Crater Lake, the parking lot at Mount Hood’s Timberline Lodge bustles. The place buzzes with lunching skiers. It’s as though schools and businesses in Portland closed for the day and everyone came up here.

After spending two hours clomping around deep, heavy snow and exploring a few ice caves carved for use in training exercises for would-be climbers, I throw my soaked sneakers in the back seat of the Rav4 and roll out of the parking lot to head west on U.S. 26 back to Portland.

Following five days of solo exploration along back roads, it’s depressingly banal to end the day at an airport hotel. I learn the second leg of my flight home to Philadelphia has been canceled. My rescheduled flight through Los Angeles leaves before dawn the following morning. I ring for a 4 a.m. wake-up call. Time to leave crashing breakers, winding backroads and snowbound lakes behind and head back to reality.