Olympic National Park Adventure

July 2014 I was able to visit Olympic National Park. I was visiting Seattle for work, and learned of the amazing national park nearby, so I extended my trip by two days to give me time to explore some wilderness.

 The park itself is set up in a way that makes it very difficult to set up camp in one location and see many sites. There are no roads that traverse the center of the park. I saw one blogger compare the road system to a wheel with many spokes. The highway is the circumference, and there are many spokes that lead into the center. I planned on making it a road trip around the entire peninsula to visit the most interesting spots.

I had to rent a car and drive 2.5 hours to the Northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula for my starting point; Port Angeles. The little town is basically the gateway to the park. From that point, you can head south to the fantastic Hurricane Ridge, or head west along the highway to the multitude of other sites within the park.

My first adventure would definitely be to head into the clouds. I dropped my stuff off at a tiny motel and drove to Hurricane Ridge. From the visitors center at 5000 feet, there are many trailheads. I chose one that would take me along the tops of several mountains called "Klahanne Ridge". I followed the trail for approximately seven miles and then turned around and headed back to my car. I reached the visitor center again just as the sun was going down.

in this sub alpine region, the trail follows a mix of shady tree cover, and open meadows and rocky outcrops.

Mount Angeles. my original destination at the three mile marker of the trail... I decided against scrambling up the difficult rock face, so that I would have the energy to continue along Klahanne ridge instead. My adventure in Hong Kong taught me a valuable lesson in conserving energy instead of climbing every rock i see.

The peak in the center distance is the starting point of my trail. The visitors center at Hurricane Ridge. This was probably mile 5 of the trail.

This section was amazing. In the distance you could see Canada.

Olympic National Park gets average two feet of precipitation per year. Which is why there was still plenty of snow on the peaks.

I saw several families of goats. They seemed to move in family groups because it was always a group of three. Father, Mother, Baby.

This is a shot from the return. Looking back at Mount Angeles again with different light as the sun went down.

The Sunset was awesome on both sides of the ridge. This is facing southeast with the reflected glow of the sun illuminating the mountains.

There are so many wildflowers everywhere to pepper the mountains with color.

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At the end of the trail, when the sun was going down I found myself back at the visitor center parking lot. I saw a group of photographers setting up huge cameras so I asked them what they were doing, and it turned out that i had parked in the perfect spot to watch the "SUPER MOON" rising. I was on the mountain just the right day when the moon was abnormally close to the earth, making it look much bigger than normal. I have tried taking pictures of the moon before with my point and click camera... They have never ever turned out THIS good.

The next day I headed out on the highway to my next location, but stopped a few times to take some shots of beautiful Crescent Lake.

 

After Crescent Lake I drove all the way to the western coast. My hike was Rialto Beach to "Hole in the Wall". This beach is ALMOST the westernmost beach in the country. Just had to travel north a little bit to be more west.

In the far distance "hole in the wall" can be seen. The trail was just following the coastline.

"hole in the wall"

There were a lot of tidal pools in this area with lots of wildlife.

This Starfish was bigger than my hand.

I was hiking at approximately 9am when the tide was starting to rise. There was a ton of backpackers RETURNING to the parking lot at this time of day. They had all slept on the beach the night before.

After the short 1-2 mile hike (i wasn't keeping track) to Hole in the wall, I headed back out on the road and headed south and east to the infamous "Hoh Rainforest". I hopped on one of the most popular trails in the park, Hoh River Trail. This trail runs almost 30 miles and goes all the way to the highest mountain in the park, Mount Olympus. I did not attempt to make it all the way to the end, instead I just hiked along the trail for approximately 7-8 miles to enjoy the amazing trees and mossy forest next to the river.

There were countless fallen trees that were immersed in moss and new growth, so much of the terrain was engulfed and could barely be identified as a previous tree.