The Olympics!

When Kristin let us know that she was planning a summer trip to camp in the National Parks in Washington, we immediately and enthusiastically asked if we could join her at Olympic National Park. She thought it was a great idea and we planned the trip together.

We made reservations at the Fairholme campground along Crescent lake. The campground is beautiful, and we were able to find two sites on the same loop. Unfortunately there was limited connectivity, so this update is for the whole long weekend.

We arrived on Saturday and after setting up camp, we took a nice walk on the Spruce RR trail, a rails to trails path near the campground. The railway was built for the timber needed during WWI, only the line wasn’t completed until after the war ended. We then walked to the lake. It would have been a great place to kayak, but we could not bring ours along because we need to keep them out of the water before our next trip. There were warning signs at the campground about swimming in the lake due to swimmers itch, enough to scare us away!

One of the amazing parts about Olympic National Park is its diversity of ecosystems. We spent Sunday exploring the northern part of the park, the old growth forest and the alpine region. First we visited Sol Duc. There is a nice hike up to a waterfall with multiple streams.

After leaving Sol Duc, we drove to Hurricane Ridge to check out the Alpine region. We were completely fogged in at the top, so not much visibility. The drive up was very scenic and completely worth it! We saw a baby deer on the drive.

On the way back, we stopped at the Ehlwa valley for a quick walk to another waterfall. The Ehlwa region is interesting because there used to be two old dams which were removed because they were environmentally disastrous for the salmon. Now you can hike along the former road to see the remains of the dam. We did that on a previous trip.

Since it was our one dry day, when we got back and Greg started a campfire. We had burgers for dinner followed by homemade s’mores. Greg made the marshmallows, graham crackers, and even the chocolate!

On Monday, we headed West to the coastal and temperate rain forest ecosystems. Because the forecast predicted rain starting in the afternoon, we headed to Rialto Beach first. It was overcast, as we expected. We walked along the beach looking at smooth rocks below our feet, and interesting rock formations in the water. The driftwood on the beach is enormous!

The highlight of the day was the Hoh Rainforest. We took a ranger led hike along the Hall of Mosses trail. The 0.8 mile trail took us almost two hours because the ranger led us through what makes a temperate rain forest unique. We have walked on this trail before, but we gained insight into the ecosystem. We learned how the trees, moss, lichen and salmon were all interconnected. An unexpected discovery was seeing a couple of Roosevelt Elk, the largest species of Elk. It was a highlight of the day.

Now we are home with a short break before our next adventure.