What an Olympic (National Park) Adventure
Following in the footsteps of https://martin.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/jazzyearl/blog/2022/03/25/3084255233, on my second weekend of Seattle trip, my friend once again lined up an incredible National Park adventure. This time to see Olympic National Park! Oh, what an adventure it was!!
Friday…
We hit the road after work on Friday and I didn’t know what to think when I was asked if I was afraid of heights. I’ve been a few very high observation decks, including having a blast https://martin.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/jazzyearl/blog/2018/06/02/441810988, so I say no right away, but was still “interested” (not worried!!) about what was ahead. I was so happy to see that we getting to walk across the bridge at Deception Pass which is about 180 feet (55 meters) above the ocean below.
What a spectacular place to take a selfie. I’m thinking that with those glasses of mine coupled with the right black fedora I might get to be in a remake of The Blues Brothers. I don’t think we had a 106 miles to go, but we did have a full tank of gas, it was getting dark, and we were wearing sunglasses.
We saw a couple of sea lions below and I did get a crappy photo of the big hawk perched on a tree near our vehicle just as it decided to fly away.
We pushed on a stop a couple of times at little towns along the way, but our next major waypoint was the little town of Coupeville to catch a ferry. We were slightly ahead of schedule which allowed us to visit Fort Casey and in addition to see the old naval artillery gun battery we got to see the Admiralty Head Lighthouse.
Yes, it is short and unlike many lighthouses in the Southwestern US, but this beautiful structure did not need to be tall as it was on the edge a substantial cliff overlooking the water. On the way down to the ferry a cute deer presented herself. We would see many more on this trip.
We took our 30-ish minute ferry ride over to the beautiful city of Port Townsend where we found some dinner and some nice art and pretty places.
It was dark after we finished eating and had a relaxing drive to Port Angeles where we called it a night.
Saturday…
I did not realize it the night before, but this seaside town was one of the formal entrances into the Olympic National Park. My friend had been wanting to drive up the mountain road called Hurricane Ridge. I got some great pictures about halfway up at the Morse Creek Overlook.
After that point we started encountering lots of snow along the way; reminding me of https://martin.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/jazzyearl/blog/2022/03/25/3084255233 the weekend before. We were getting excited as my friend has always wanted to see the view from the top of the road and the visibility was looking excellent.
Of course, I jinxed it! I always do!! LOL. Here’s the spectacular view from the visitors center at the top that we were treated to for all our efforts.
OK… you’ve made it this far so you deserve the treat of seeing what it should have looked like!
Reminder: this is NOT my picture. I took it from this site which talks about getting a job at the visitor’s center. I can think of worst views for your lunch break.
Got down back to Port Angeles and bought a bunch of postcards at the visitors center. A short drive away was Elwha and and even shorter hike to see Madison Waterfall.
Headed onward and had lunch at Sully’s Drive-In Burgers in Forks, WA – the rainiest town in the lower 48 states. Yes, it is the setting for the Twilight novels/movies, too.
Thankfully, the sun was out today so I wasn’t too worried about all the damn vampires. Where should you visit on a sunny day? A rainforest, of course! We were greeted by more deer when we arrived at the Hoh Rainforest visitor center.
We hiked the Spruce Nature Trail which was a first time for my friend who has explored the other trails previously.
Here is another one of those WEIRD twisted trees!!
That place was crazy beautiful. The mossy Pacific NW you expect when heading out that way.
Back on the road we saw a sign for something like “tallest tree” and we went on an unplanned side diversion to see the Duncan Cedar. Very impressive indeed. Mother Nature is a beautiful woman.
Speaking of iconic Pacific NW views, Ruby Beach.
Guess what? There was ANOTHER “tallest tree” sign, so off the road we go! This time the 1000 year old Kalaloch Big Cedar Tree.
It was time to turn inland and head to Lake Quinault to call it a night.
We got off the main road on the north side of the lake and we figured out a few minutes into the turn that it would be faster to just run around. My friend really wanted to drive around the lake. The little blue dot above shows where we could finally cross the river feeding into the lake. The cool news is that before we got to the bridge we FINALLY got to see some elk.
Even better was the tiny, but super cool looking, bonus falls we saw just as we crossed the bridge.
The bonuses continued as we got to see the 60 foot tall Bunch Falls.
A 3rd waterfall bonus; the 40 foot Merriman Falls!!
We finally made it to the Lake Quinault Lodge and grab some dinner at the fabulous restaurant
Sunday…
This place looks even better in the daylight!
Guess what is only a couple hundred yards away from the lodge? Yes, we made it a TRIFECTA of tallest trees. I present you the Big Spruce!
We drove down to Ocean Shores where we had breakfast.
And, of course, I had to see the ocean again and found a very flat and wide beach.
It was getting time to start heading back to the big city so we started heading back up the peninsula. Pit stop in Hoodsport for some ice cream as well as a local distillery.
Stopped again a bit further north and thought I’d take a quick picture of our trusty steed – an awesome Honda Element.
This stop had a sweet creek…
…that led to the 229 foot tall Rocky Brook Falls.
We got an update that the ferry we were going to take back was running three hours late and had no idea if the schedule would slip even further, so we changed plans to return back to Port Townsend for a guaranteed reservation on the same ferry we came out on two nights before. We were able to have dinner there as well as drive around Fort Worden Historic State Park (which was packed with deer everywhere it seemed) and see Point Wilson Lighthouse. You can even rent it out like an AirBNB.
Caught this little beauty on the way back down to the ferry.
This weekend was an incredible road trip with a super friend. I could not have had a better time!