Apr 18-20 -- Olympic NP

After visiting Mt Rainier NP, we headed northwest for Olympic National Park which is in the extreme upper-left of the continental US. Olympic has something for just about everybody - mountains, a rain forest, hot springs, and a wild seacoast. Olympic encompasses 900,000-some acres - not as large as several of the other national parks we've visited - but it has no central or loop road so visitors can't easily drive from one area to the next in a fairly short period of time.

We stayed at Port Angeles, a harbor/port town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca which separates the US from our neighbor to the north. From our hotel, we could look across and see Canada.

The first day we headed to the Rialto Beach on the seacoast. A pretty rugged area with lots of fallen trees lining the beach - most having been washed ashore from other areas along the coast after storms. There are a number of small "islands" or rock-outcroppings they refer to as "seastacks" laying just offshore. It was a very windy and chilly morning we spent there walking along the beach.

We left there and drove back out to the main road and headed south to our next stop - the Hoh Rain Forest. The area gets 12-14 feet of precipitation each year and consequently has many mosses and ferns blanketing the spruce, fir and oak trees that dominate the forest. We took a short hike (the Hall of Mosses trail) to experience it firsthand. Surreal and sort of spooky!

That pretty much took care of day one.

The second day, we dove to the Hot Springs resort area (a commercially operated resort in the park) and hiked out the trail to the Sol Duc waterfall. The Sol Duc river is a key waterway for the coho salmon.

One area that we wanted to visit but couldn't was Hurricane Ridge, a scenic mountaintop area. The area, along with a few others, was still closed for the season and not scheduled to open until May 1, contrary to what was posted on the NPS website. Bummer! But with the cloudy and overcast weather while we were there I doubt the views would have been anything to write home about anyway.

Rialto Beach

Rialto Beach

At Hoh Rain Forest

Hoh Rain Forest

On the trail to Sol Duc Falls

Sol Duc Falls

Lake Crescent

So, on Thursday, Apr 20 we left Olympic NP & Port Angeles and headed east. Our next destination was Yellowstone with a stopover at Coeur d'Alene ID on the way. I'd originally thought we'd go to both the North Cascades and Glacier National Parks on the way to Yellowstone but both were pretty much snowed in and driving there would have been a waste of time.

That's all for now ..... Dan