Olympic National Park – a rain lover’s paradise

Heading further north into Oregon we had to make a decision on seeing either Olympic National Park or Mount Rainer.

After some reading and talking to other people we decided on Olympic. Before heading there we had a night in Portland. After crossing Portland from south to north and encountering what was pretty much the only real traffic congestion we have seen in months we settled into an RV Park then showered and cleaned up before heading out to dinner with Bruce Felix (a family friend of Fiona’s family for many years) and his wife Audrey. Also there was Jenna his daughter and her fiancé Mike. We had a fantastic evening with them, enjoying to company, the food and Bruce’s wine which was excellent. It was lovely to spend time with a family (and their lovely dog) and we are grateful for their hospitality.

Rainy Day? Try Lego and pancakes.

The western side of Olympic National Park is the wettest place in continental USA and after visiting we will not disagree. With constant rain there is almost as much moisture dripping down the inside of the windows in the RV as the outside. Olympic National Park is in the north west corner of Washington State. It has one large main section surrounding Mt Olympus and then a coastal section. This sounds compact but in fact you have to travel around the outside of the park dipping into various bits.

 The first area we visited was Lake Quinault. We managed to score a campsite near the lake along with quite a few mosquitoes. Next day we set out for what we told Symi would be a short walk through the rainforest. It turned into a quite a long walk but we amused ourselves by playing tour guides. We think Rob secretly delights in this game as he is very inventive with his names. This time as a tourist he gave Symi no end of trouble as Mr Superior (first name Iyam!). As a tour guide he was a force to be reckoned with as Edgeof (last name Knowledge). On the walk we came across the worlds (surprisingly not the Universe’s) largest Sikta Spruce tree which was impressively large. We walked back along the lake stopping for an ice-cream and a beer. The lake was lovely and we spent the afternoon sitting by it, having a brief swim and skimming stones.

'Not a backyard tree.

Next day we headed across to the coast to the Kalalock Camping area which required reservations. People book 6 months ahead to get a beach-side spot. As we were only there for one night we found a spot quite easily and it was only just off the beach. When we say beach we are not talking about what you would find in West Australian.

There was the most amazing amount of driftwood we have ever seen, it was piled up all along the beach. The skies were grey and the water even more so. We went along to a whale talk and met up with a family from Georgia, Tracy and Matt and their two children, Abby and Issac. They are travelling for 7 weeks in their trailer, covering a lot of ground and doing lots. We arranged to meet up with them on the beach for a walk that afternoon. Although the beach was still grey they let us know that this was the clearest weather for three days. We walked the beach for a couple of hours chatting, looking at the tide pool and for Symi, spending some much wanted time with some other kids. We also saw a grey whale and a sea otter. We all sat watching the sea otter for ages as it fished for dinner. It caught the fish with astonishing ease and then jumped up on a rock to eat it. Photos are not good as we do not have a tripod and the camera is hard to hold steady on full zoom.

Raining in the rainforest - what gives?

Leaving early the next morning we headed round to Hoh for what is said to be the best example of temperate rain forest ‘in the world’ (insert Jeremy Clarkson’s voice here). Certainly the rain part of it was correct. In true Waller style (according to the Gallagher’s) we donned our rain jackets and rain pants and ventured out on a wet, ranger led program around the Spruce walk. The rain forest was much better than in Quinault and as always there was lots to learn from the ranger. Next day we were thinking of doing an overnight walk but decided it was too wet and contented ourselves with an out and back wet walk to a waterfall. By this time Fiona had decided that rain forest living was not for her. It was very beautiful but the rain and the lush vegetation gave her a claustrophobic feeling that made her long for sunlight or at least bright light. I think for all of us the rain forest was a place we enjoyed visiting but we have no desire to live there – a no brainer really considering there was no mountain biking! For those of you who are wondering where the berm by berm mountain biking descriptions are in this post – stay tuned. I am now sitting in Whistler writing this without Rob – where could he be?

From Hoh we moved on to the northern part of the park to Sol Duc (still raining, possibly the Duc is short for Ducks?). Actually the rain was easing and was forecast to ease off in the afternoon. Fiona tried to influence nature by playing songs that start with Sun! We decided to tempt fate by having a BBQ. Symi found a couple of kids to explore with and Rob did a great job getting the fire going with very damp wood. Fiona produced some pork fillet and ourworld finally began to dry out. That was good as the next day we had planned an overnight walk to Deer Lake. Yes folks, Fiona had agreed to go camping in bear country!

Symi with a real live kid to play with.

Good looking campfire and dinner

Armed with a bear canister and a birthday present bear bell we set off. The walk to Deer Lake was not a long one, about 4 miles but it was all uphill – about 2000ft in elevation gain. The walking was lovely and not having far to go we were able to plod along at a steady pace while admiring the waterfalls and the scenery. We also played rigmarole, a game Symi and Fiona read about in the book Little Women which we are reading at the moment. Basically you take turns telling a story – it helps keep Symi amused when we are walking especially as the storyline becomes more and more outrageous with witches and people being turned to stone.  We arrived at Deer Lake and after a bit of wandering around found a campsite with a lake view.

Deer Lake

Note black bear canister in the background

Backpackers

Next morning (after a bear encounter free night) we left our tent and packs and climbed up another 700ft to the snow. This was the beginning of the alpine walking and we enjoyed looking at the meadows, views and generally open landscape. It seemed amazing to us that in July we were being stopped by snow at just over 4000ft! After packing up the camp we picked up our packs and made our way down. Sore legs were the order of the day for Fiona and Symi the next day.

Poster Christmas Tree

Our last stop in Olympic was Hurricane Ridge which one of the rangers had told us not to miss. You can understand that we were a little skeptical to be told that this area of the National Park was in a rain shadow. We arrived at the Heart O’ the Hills campsite and – it was dry! Next morning we coaxed Marvey our uncomplaining RV up the 5200ft to Hurricane Ridge. What a change from the rain forests. We found ourselves in beautiful alpine meadows with amazing views, alpine flowers and baby deer with their mothers. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the meadows taking in all in. The views of the snow-capped mountain ranges were awe inspiring making this one of our favourite bits of Olympic National Park. We made our way down in the afternoon to travel to Port Townsend to spend the night before catching the ferry off the peninsular to begin our drive to Canada.

Deer spotting