Olympic Peninsula May 2012

After having visited most of the National Parks in the western US over the past few years, I realized I should revisit a old nearby favorite: Olympic National Park. I used to go hiking and camping there several times a year but had not gone back in over a decade, mostly due to rising ferry prices. But when last spring I drove down to the Redwoods, I knew I would spend this spring vacation across the sound.

I left Seattle in warm, late-morning sun, but it was cold and windy in the supposed-banana belt of Sequim, and the day remained that way for most of the afternoon. I started out with two easy old favorites, Madison Falls along the Elwha River and Marymore Falls off of Lake Crescent.

Madison Falls

Barnes Creek

Marymere Falls

About 6:30 the sun came out, and I wanted to find a place to enjoy it. I’d planned on camping at Fairholm Campground on the far west end of Lake Crescent, but it was in dark forest gloom, so I headed up the Sol Duc Road. I got to the Sol Duc Campground shortly before dusk, and if I’d known how nice it would be I’d have come sooner. My site overlooks a mossy side-channel, a large beaver dam accounting perhaps for the contained water.


Sol Duc River
Some rain fell overnight, and the morning was chilly, with some sun, some rain, a lot of in-between. I took a six mile round trip hike through lovely forest to Sol Duc Falls, one of the more photographed spots on the peninsula. Just as I reached the falls, the sun blessed me with an appearance, giving the forest and the falls that mystical misty glow.



Trail to Sol Duc Falls



Sol Duc Falls



Sol Duc Falls



Sol Duc River



Sol Duc River

I had thought I would do some backpacking on this trip, into Avala Beach maybe, even the Enchanted Valley, but by now I was realizing I was simply not mentally prepared for that sort of organization; I was having trouble pulling car camping together. So I settled with a plan of a simple grand tour of the outer Olympic Peninsula, a more leisurely reunion, featuring shorter hikes, strolls even.

Stopped for lunch at a roadside table on the banks of the river just in time for a passing hail shower, which turned into a real spring shower, and then the sun came back back out. Four Harlequin Ducks, three of them males, arrived to work the rapids right in front of me. The Harelquin is a beautiful duck, and the only one in Washington that breeds in mountain streams.





Sol Duc River

Harlequin Duck

Rialto Beach
      I drove west with the Sol Duc along 101 toward La Push and Rialto Beach. I checked out Mora Campground on the way in and it was empty. Empty! No, I spotted one small tent. I was free to stay out at the beach as long as I wanted without worrying about getting a campsite. Rialto Beach was also rather empty, presumably due to the enormous non-stop winds. High tide was about 3:00 PM, meaning the next morning would be good for a walk out to Hole-in-the-Wall. I poked around the massive piles of beach logs to find that perfect combination of sunlight, wind protection, and comfort, and spent most of the afternoon hunkered down reading. Had a picnic dinner, went for a few strolls, and left after an abbreviated sunset. Mora CG remained largely deserted; I saw two parties other than myself the next morning. At night the ocean roar sounded ominous.

Quillayute Delta and James Island

choppy silver surf

Rialto Beach

kelp



Quillayute Delta and James Island II

Hoh Rain Forest.
      I was up and out by 9:30 the next morning, perfect timing for a low-tide beach stroll, except it was overcast and I was in no mood for an overcast beach walk. I headed back toward 101 and within moments it was pouring. Through Forks and up to the Hoh by 10:30. I walked the Hall of Mosses and the Spruce Trail, and the first time through I was unable to reexperienI we the sense of awe and discovery I’ve felt there in the past, in what I do believe are the most outstanding short walks in the entire National Park system (OK, I've never been to Alaska or Hawaii). I went back to the campground at about 2:00 for a brief shower - rain shower that is, no shower for me - and read on my grassy porch overlooking the extensive Hoh River bed, the river itself barely visible 100 yards away. Warm when the sun breaks through, cold when the wind picks up, but mostly in between. The abandoned river bed is an expansive debris waste, like an enormous vacant lot. Close to zero aesthetic appeal.

Back to the VC for two more walks around the Spruce Trail and one around the Hall of Mosses. Combine for roughly six miles on the day. I missed the one following the after-dinner drink, something I do recommend. A herd of Roosevelt Elk was grazing in the next campground loop. The ranger told me the park was going to have to start hazing them out because they were becoming too habituated to people. They’ll tolerate you for so long, but will charge if you cross their unseen safety zone.

Friday was a beautiful morning. Damp sleep left me sore as hell but soon I felt great. One last stroll through the two trails, this time in glorious sun, and I get my rainforest groove, mostly I think because of the light. Spend about three hours walking the combined two miles of trail. I hung out for a while on the river bank and did not want to leave. A large hawk - immature eagle? - was fishing, none too successfully. Then a true bald eagle swooped in and ran it off. High drama.

The forest changes too quickly for the interpretive signs. One instructs the viewer to identify the western hemlock by its drooping branches. I looked up, way up, the subject tree and saw the entire top had been obliterated at about 150 feet. No drooping branches remained. Another sign pointed out the fungus adorning a snag, only the snag had no fungus. Presumably it had all been consumed.

Learning my trees/studying my processes

Taft Creek

Douglas Squirrel

Big Leaf Maple

Taft Creek

Kalaloch
It was a different situation down at Kalaloch Campground. noon-time Friday with a gorgeous weekend forecast, Mother’s Day to boot. The campground takes reservations starting Memorial Day but it’s first come first served here and I got there just in time for one of the last beach front sites. Not an expansive site, but with good wind block, and with a tunnel to a little private perch on the bluff overlooking the beach. The tunnel goes through thick knotty trees that take a toll on my head before I mastered a sufficient duck.

private tunnel to beach perch

keep your head DOWN!

Kalaloch is a big flat wide beach, particularly at low tide. No sea stacks, the drift lumber pushed flush against the bluff. A lighthouse on a flat island off to the northwest. My perch was about 30 feet above the beach and my view was expansive. Nearly nothing was going on. Only a half-dozen people passed below in over an hour. Little ghost-like waves of steam rose from the beach. Two crows and one gull rested near each other on the beach; how often do you see one gull sitting alone on a beach? A couple dozen sandpiper-like birds cavorted nearby as well. Nearly no flotsam or jetsam. Huge amount of printed text was sketched into the sand; some one or some few spent a lot of time on this. 25-30 words maybe a yard tall. It was upside down to me so I couldn't really read it.

I spent most of the afternoon on my perch reading and watching all this inactivity. Then I scrambled down the bluff and found that once I was down there the beach felt anything but inactive. The action was sensual - the breeze, the surf, the smooth flat walking - rather than visual. I examined the text and decided it was largely gibberish. I saw some crabs washing in with the newly turned tide. They seemed alive though they weren't doing anything. I wondered if they were coming out ahead of the tide in order to get the subsequent cover, and wondered also if that wasn't dangerous. Soon a crow and then a gull flew over without swooping in on them but I didn't hang around long enough to learn their fate.

Down to Kalaloch Creek, a phenomenon odd for east-coast beach people, a creek running straight over the sand to the ocean. Gulls were bathing in the fresh stream. The creek comes in from under the resort lodge, huge tree trunks, and a general mess of high-tide storm. Above me on the bluff was the restaurant patio, afternoon patrons perhaps looking down and wondering why this old guy was hopping around the beach logs like some kid. Perhaps they weren't.




Kalaloch Creek

Ruby Beach
In late afternoon I headed up to Ruby Beach to spend the evening. I had enjoyed a wonderful solitary evening there some 15 years ago but that was in April and mid-week while here in May on Friday night the beach was rather lousy with tripods. I slunk around with my point and shoot looking for a spot where I was not in someone’s shot and the were not in mine. I talked to a guy from German television but he wanted to talk about the economy and the US health care system, so I had to laugh him off. “Don’t get me started - I’m on Vacation!”

I went up the beach a ways and stopped to take a picture of a moderately interesting bluff and as soon as I snapped the picture a bald eagle flew directly in front of me. For the first time in my shutterbug career I was impatient for my camera to reset, and I was only able to get the back of it flying away. Later I saw the eagle had made it into the frame of my first shot: if I’d waited a second-longer I’d have had a beauty.










Pictures of sunsets and seastacks are a dime a dozen I know, and the Park Service says Ruby Beach is probably the most photographed of all. Hey, that doesn't mean I can't have some too.

QuinaultAfter a long beautiful morning on the beach I reluctantly dragged myself back to the car for an early afternoon drive to the town of Quinault, where all the Forest Service campgrounds remain closed for the season. I was intending to drive out to Graves Creek in the National Park anyway, a long slow drive up an unpaved road, refreshed along the way by a waterfall or three.

I get to Graves Creek and see it was well worth the effort. It is nearly empty, free because the season hadn't started yet, and absolutely beautiful on one of the nicest days ever

Graves Creek Campgrround (including picnic table and outhouse)

East Fork Qunault River



Graves Creek Nature Trail (more or less)

 A fine forest walk in its own right to a what proved to be a spectacular little gorge. Context is crucial for waterfalls. If I were to see a waterfall like this



Pony Bridge Falls

on the side of the road, I might not even stop to take a look. But the same waterfall in a setting like this must be explored. A not-easy descent down into the gorge earns you this 

Pony Bridge Gorge

and some modest rock hopping gets a close up of the falls. Routine concerns with slippery rocks are in effect; in fact I lost my glasses and ruined two cameras in a full-body frontal splat into the shallows. But you could almost certainly do better than that.



Pony Bridge



Pony Bridge and Falls

I spent a lot of time looking for my glasses, but I was at a disadvantage, not having my glasses and all. I had a spare pair in the car, so I wouldn’t have to drive blind, and frankly the lenses were badly scratched, though I liked the frames. No great loss there really, but I wanted to salvage something. One of the ruined cameras had served heroically through my entire trip and I felt this was a fitting farewell. The Canon 720A, we salute you. The other was more of a loss, Panasonic I’d only been using for a year and I had come to like it quite a bit. Ah well.

I walked back to the car in an astigmatic blur, giving the landscape that Impressionist look the world had for me before I learned the world didn't actually look that way, I just needed glasses.