Since the drive from Crater Lake to Olympic National Park in Washington was close to 10 hours, we split the trip up over two days. On Saturday, we drove over six hours to an overnight at the Millersylvania State Park in Washington state. We were delighted to find out it had showers and after setting up our tent and bedding, we each availed ourselves of a nice, hot shower. It seems that the State Parks we stay at have showers, while the National Parks do not. It was our third shower in five days and we haven’t been this clean on the entire trip!
On Sunday morning we packed up after a quick overnight and began the final leg of our journey to Olympic. We attended Church at the Captial Christian Center in Olympia, only a short drive from our campground. We met a couple of nice members at the Church who prayed with us for safe travels. That was very nice of them. It was a very nice service, and the preacher’s message on generosity was really good.
After Church, for the second time in our lives, we voluntarily drove into a rain forest. The first was on our family vacation to Hawaii in 2007, when we visited the rain forest in Hilo on the Big Island. This time we were heading into the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic. We only had about 3 hours to drive to the park, arriving around 3:30. Much to our surprise, we faced the longest line of any we have encountered in the 18 parks we have visited so far. The wait to get through the ranger station was over thirty minutes. Once we cleard that road block it was smooth sailing to our campsite. We had everything set up in only 50 minutes, our times are definitely improving.
Our campsite must be located on bed rock, because each of the six tent spikes only went into the ground about 5 inches before hitting a very hard, impenetrable surface. We were confident our tent would stay put though, so we settled in for our two night stay in the rain forest.
According to the information at the park office, this part of Olympic National Park receives almost 12 FEET of rain each year, averaging a foot a month. I did the math and I was expecting to see about a half an inch of rain during the two days we would be at the park. I was really wrong. Sunday was sunny, with blue skies and temperatures in the mid 60s. Monday was even nicer, sunny, bright blue skies, and temperatures approaching 70. The conditions were as far from what I expected a rain forest environment to be than we could have imagined. Thank God for that. Clearly, the area receives abundant rain as everything is lush, green, and alive. The meadows in the campground are full of tall grasses, the forest is filled with vibrant ferns, trees, and other vegetation. And the Hoh River running through the park is flowing rapidly. We were just thrilled that for our two days here, it was sunny and dry.
As with our experiences at our other parks, we met some very nice people during our stay. Our next door neighbor at our campsite, Roxanne Jordan, hails from Minnesota. We had a nice conversation with her Monday morning before heading out on one of our hikes. She is spending time touring this part of the country. We kidded with her about the many layers we wore to bed, given the predicted lows in the mid 40s overnight. She laughed, saying that since she is from Minnesota, the mid 40s was nothing to worry about. As a matter of fact, she was dressed in shorts and had one fleece on to start the day, while I was dressed in a pair of jeans, a tee shirt, two fleeces, and a knit cap. Wimp!
We started our day hiking the Hall of Mosses Trail, which is a 3/4 mile loop with one of the most unique sights we’ve seen. Most of the trees throughout this part of the forest are draped with a thick covering of a deep green moss. In many cases, every branch and limb of the tree was completely covered in this moss. It was again a surreal site, like something you would find in a Dr. Seuss book. Beth and I stood gawking at this natural phenomenon, shaking our heads at what we were seeing. Funny thing is, it appears the moss doesn’t hurt the trees, just enhances the visual appeal they offer. We also had the great opportunity to see an elk up close and personal during our hike. It was just off of the trail, enjoying breakfast, oblivious to the crowd of people standing around her. We spent about an hour walking, looking, and of course, taking pictures, before heading back to our campsite to pack lunch and head out on a longer hike on a different trail.
,Mid-morning, I hoisted our trusty backpack cooler full of our lunch onto my back and off we went to hike a portion of the Hoh River Trail. This trail is apparently over 30 miles long one way according to the sign at the trail head, but we only planned to hike out about 3 miles out and then return. It was quite a remarkable trail. We were deep within the Hoh rain forest. It was stunning. I know I’ve used the word stunning in almost every blog, but I can’t help it, as so much of what we are seeing is just that, and I don’t have a Thesaurus with me to find a suitable synonym for stunning, sorry. The trail was lined on both sides with lush vegetation, large patches of ferns of various sizes, moss covered spruce, hemlock, and other types of trees, and the Hoh River ever present running parallel to it. We love hikes with water views, and this one provided us just that. And the water color was really unique. It was kind of acqua blue, something we have never seen in a river before. I came to find out from our neighbor Roxanne that the color is the result of glacier action causing a flour like sediment to be deposited in the river, giving it this really neat color.
At one point along the trail, we met Lisa, a nice and friendly lady from North Dakota, I believe she said. She was also traveling around and camping in this part of the country and we enjoyed walking and talking with her for some time. We ate lunch together in a little grove near the river and swapped stories from our experiences. Beth and I continue to be grateful for the people like Lisa and Roxanne that we have had the opportunity to meet in our travels.
After lunch, we continued on while Lisa headed back to the trail head. We walked about another ten minutes, reaching the trail marker for Mt. Tom Creek, 2.9 miles from where we joined up with the trail, turned around at that point, and headed back. It had been a beautiful hike, under absolutely perfect conditions, especially for a rain forest. I am typing this at our campsite. It’s about 4 in the afternoon, and the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I believe I can hear the sounds of the Hoh River flowing in the distance. It’s everything you could ask for while camping.
Olympic is National Park number 18 of 35 on our escapade. We’ve now seen more than half of the parks we started out to visit. If the remaining 17 are anywhere near as breath taking as the first ones have been, we have a whole lot to look forward to.
I realized that Olympic is the farthest point west we will be on our journey. From my chair here in the campground, we are around 3,235 miles from our home in Nags Head. Each mile from this point on will bring us closer to our family and friends who we miss dearly. In the meantime, we are going to make the most of every mile we have left.
Next up is Mt. Ranier National Park, as our stay in Washington continues.