The Highs and Lows of Olympic National Park

We left for the park early to try to see as much of the park as we could.  Olympic is huge.  Much like Yellowstone.  No highway transverses the park.  Highways go around the border of the park and there are a few roads that leave from the main highway and go into the park.  To make matters worse, the main route from where we are to the western edge of the park has about 15 miles completely closed due to road construction.  We had to detour around a large section of the main road on a twisty road where sometimes the hairpin curves slowed us to 15 MPH.  So we spent from 8:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and only saw two different areas of the park.  We had made a list of things we wanted to do today and most are still on the list.  Not sure what we will do tomorrow.  We have to redo our list.  It was a beautiful day.  The sunshine without haze and smoke was a nice change.

This was tunnel number one with two more following in quick succession.

These mountains are nearly 7,000 feet high.  Not as high as some in the Rockies but high enough to have glaciers year round on the tops.

We stopped here to take the High Ridge Trail.  The pictures below were taken from that trail.  The trail was 2.8 miles round trip.  Half of it was up and the other half down.  Down is a lot easier!

The body of water in the distance is the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  Even farther in the distance is  Vancouver Island, Canada.

In the winter when there is snow, people come to the park to ski.  This is a ski rescue cabin staffed in the winter months.

This was quite a trail for a 72-year old man and I am proud to say that he made it to the top and back, despite painful knees.

Taken from the trail looking down on the road on which we had just driven.

A rest before we tackle to final climb to the top.

Here we both are just before we take the final climb behind us to the top.

We made it!  At the top!

This is the last part of the trail.  It runs right along the ridge.  I guess that is why it is called "Ridge Trail."

A happier hiker - we are on the way down.

Back on the road, we spotted this deer walking across the road.  

He had a couple of buddies waiting for him at the top of this incline.

First, a snack to strengthen him for the climb.

This was taken on the detour.  It shows the Strait of Juan de Fuca on eye level.

We left Hurricane Ridge about 11:00 a.m. and arrived on the other side of the park at Hoh Rain Forest about 2:30 p.m.    The drive to the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor's Center was beautiful.  Sometimes we were driving through a tunnel of trees.  The elevation on this side of the park is around 500 feet.  We went from nearly 6,000 feet to 500 feet.  This part of the park gets nearly 140 inches of rain every year.  It is lush and green.  

We took this trail at the Hoh Rain Forest.  It was a mile loop so it was easy compared to the one on the ridge.

On the mountain, this was called goat beard moss.  It hung on most of the trees.

Ferns filled in between the Sitka Spruce Trees.  The trees can grow 200-300 feet tall.

When a tree falls, it is left to provide nourishment for seeds that may fall on the tree.  These trees are called "nurse" trees.  As the nurse tree rots away, the roots of the trees grow on and around the nurse trees making for a strange root system.

Above and below are examples of several seeds germinating on the nurse tree.  Eventually, when the nurse tree rots away, the roots of the trees are entwined.

These are huge trees.  They aren't the size of the redwoods in California, but definitely bigger than anything we have in Illinois.

This is an example of a nurse tree before any trees have started to grow.

This tree had fallen on the trail and because the park service tries to leave everything as nature occurs, only a section was cut away to accommodate the trail.  It also helps to envision how thick the tree is.

We were so busy that we didn't have time to eat.  We found this little place on the way back from the Hoh Rain Forest.  Carol had a Mount Olympus Burger and I had a BLT.  We shared fries.  It was very good.

We got back to the camp about 6:30.  Sandy had been in the camper since 8:00 a.m.  She was a good girl so the first thing we did was take her for a walk and give her supper and treats.  It was a good day filled with memories of amazing, beautiful sights.  Even though there was some frustration at the road closure, we tried to make the best of it.  This park is very diverse.  It has the beautiful snow topped mountains, the rain forest and, Pacific Ocean beaches.  I had wanted to visit a couple of the beaches but that would mean driving back to the western side of the park, using the detour.  I am not sure I want Carol to spend all day tomorrow driving.    We hope to go to Astoria which is on the Pacific Ocean  at our next stop so we may bypass the ocean for now.