Jon's Travels: Olympic National Park

Waterfall near Lake Quinault

After waking up early at the rest area, I found out my friends were visiting Olympic National Park. I high tailed it up there, stopping in Portland for a quick Voodoo Doughnuts run.

The Maple Bacon Doughnut, complete with thick cut bacon. Tasty!

I made my way to Lake Quinault, where Max, Cait, and Max's parents were staying for the weekend. It was a really cozy place, and it reminded me a lot of the lodge on Crater Lake. We even got to "crash" a wedding that was moved inside because of the weather.

Getting some ideas for New Years from the minister.

There was a pool inside and Cait was acting as our drill sergeant: do laps, use the ladder for pull ups, do inverted sit ups! We were all pretty exhausted, but we still had time to play some Settlers of Catan and Wild Rummy.

I was able to hang out with them for two days before they had to take off back to Seattle. It was nice sleeping inside, out of the rain, and out of my car for a change.

When they left, I went on to explore the rest of the park, starting with the Quinault area. I saw waterfalls, some tall trees, and backtracked a little to see the Fish Hatchery.

Same waterfall as the first picture, but you can see additional falls on the left, due to the amount of rain.

Worlds Largest Spruce

Another tall tree. I forget what kind though...

Taken from inside the tree.

The fish hatchery, responsible for many different species of Salmon.

Olympic is a BIG park. There are also no real roads that run all the way through the park. This means that you need to drive around it to see the different sights.

All the rain had another effect: some of the roads were washed out. I wanted to go visit the Hoh Rain Forest, but there were sections of road covered with a foot of rainwater. Until they could remove the water, they couldn't tell if there was any damage to the road.

I stopped at the ranger station to find good places to see. They had mentioned the beaches, but warned against the tides. I checked out what I could while trying to stay dry.

Debris carried from the river at Ruby Beach.

Ruby Beach. I was told it looks much better in the sun.

Either First Beach or Rialto Beach near La Push.

I continued on the road until I reached Sol Duc. They have some hot springs there, and for $15, I figured it was worth a soak. The water reminded me a little of the soft water you find in rural parts of the country; kind of soap-like. It was also a little strange being outside and being rained on while sitting in the spring.

I talked with a couple of the other visitors staying the night. There was someone else who was making a National Parks trip like me. Looking back, it is likely that most of her plans were ruined by the government shutdown, which really sucks since she had been planning this for a few years.

I left the pools and decided with the last few hours of "daylight", I would try and see some more falls. The paths were soaked and flooded, so I wasn't able to go as far as I wanted. Google did make a cool gif of my pictures of a stream though.

Cool feature!

Wet and a little cold, I decided I was going to head back and make some dinner. I looked around for a pavilion or something that I could cook under, but I didn't see anything. I had two options, either I cook my food in the bathroom, or cook it under a map for the trail. I picked the latter. A park ranger stopped by almost as soon as I started cooking and I freaked out a little. Technically I don't think I should have been cooking under the sign, but he let it slide. He was kind enough to just wave and let me continue to make dinner.

Making some dinner underneath a map. It was either here or the bathrooms...

I found out that the Rangers were kind as far as cooking food, but didn't like it when you "camped" outside of campsites. Not really wanting to set up camp in the rain, I spent another night in my car.

From Sol Duc, I went towards the visitors center to try and catch Hurricane Ridge. On a nice day, you can see Seattle from the top. Along the way, I stopped to see Madison Falls. Like the other falls, it was very active from all the rain.

The sun was trying it's best to shine!

Again, the weather had conspired against me and the road up to Hurricane Ridge was closed because of snow. They had webcams in the visitor center, and you wouldn't have been able to see 3 feet in front of you, let alone Seattle.

The visitor center suggested I either go into town for a drink (it was only 10am) or I could check out the Dungeness Spit. Not feeling much like drinking, I opted for the second choice.

Marker for the National Park.

There is a lighthouse pretty far down. The weather was getting worse, so I decided to head back.

At this point, there really wasn't anything else to see in the park. I decided I would head back south to Portland. I ended up getting a little lost on a back road to a state park and saw the sign for a boy scout camp.