Olympic National Forest

National Parks Tour – Washington

I know I wont be able to spend a lot of time at the National Parks but I am going to do my best to see as much as I can.  In Washington I want to visit the North Cascades, Olympic and Mount Rainier.

I mentioned earlier that Linda and I drove into North Cascades NP but we would only have a couple hours.  We only drove up to the Diablo Lake Overlook but as you can see the view was awesome!  And as a bonus there was this HUGE parking lot and we were the only ones in it…. Loving it!  Now the remainder of this blog is about Olympic National Park.

After leaving Seattle my first stop was Olympic NF It was a short drive from Seattle but I had a few errands to do while in Seattle so I didn’t leave until noon and then of course there were a few stops along the way so I didn’t make it to the campground until almost 5pm.  Pulling into the Elwha Valley campground I was very happy to see that their was only one other camper in the entire campground.  I wanted to explore the area a bit more but I could only go another mile or so up the road.  They are in the process of removing a couple dams in the valley to restore the valley back to it’s original ecological health.  This is a complicated procedure where they have to lower the water levels including water treatment facilities to protect water supplies.  They have a web site setup at www.nps.gov/olym if anyone is interested.

The next morning I drove up Hurricane Ridge as I approached the first turnout I noticed an overland vehicle which is a very unique design and I have seen this one before.  When I went to McCarthy, AK I saw this truck along with another one from Germany.  I pulled over under the pretext of taking some pictures and started up a conversation with the driver.  Their names are Mark and Sarah from the UK touring the states.  They were at McCarthy and are heading for South America, where such a vehicle will come in handy for sure.  Their web site is www.fromatob.org

I had a fantastic day for this drive.  Oregon is known for its lousy weather and today there were only a few clouds.  One picture shows the Olympic mountain range, sorry there is no way my camera can capture that.  The second picture I am told but have been unable to confirm is Mt. Rainier in the distance.  If that information was correct I’m told that it is only visible a few times a year.  All I can say it was in the right direction.

Part two of today was to spend a little time in Port Angeles but it is a small town so after a walk along the port area I headed to Sol Duc Hot Springs.  This is a resort where the highlight of course is the hot springs.  They had four cement pools ranging from COLD to HOT.  I stuck to the middle one, very good soaking.

For my third day in the park it required me to hook up the trailer the next morning and head out to the Hoh Rain Forest which was about a two hour drive to the other side of the park. I was only able to do the shorter of the two hikes they have here in this section of the park because one trail was closed for repairs.  But that leaves something to explore on the next trip. The picture on top shows the growth of the Sitka Spruce, the one on the left in Alaska the one on the right in the Hoh Rain Forest.

Part two today was to make it over to the coast, yes this is still part of Olympic National Park.  This was another hour drive where I took this picture at Ruby Beach.  After spending a little time taking pictures and kicking back on the beach I went down the coast a little bit more to Kalaloch campground.  Nice but crowded and very windy.  On the plus side the smell of the sea was fantastic.

I really enjoyed the Olympic National Forest, I could spend weeks here alone but I just do not have that amount of time right now, maybe someday.