Hello Everybody! It’s hard to believe it’s October already. The leaves are definitely turning here in Washington State and the stores are filled with skeletons and pumpkins. It’s definitely starting to cool down and the days are getting noticeably shorter. This week has brought me from the heart of spectacular Olympic National Park to the state capital of Olympia with a couple of cool small towns sandwiched in between. I put in another 20 miles on the trail this week which I’m pretty proud of and finally got my views of Mount Olympus. After a couple of weeks of small towns and national park, it was nice to return to the city, although Olympia is hardly a thriving metropolis. I finished off my week with a night off the road in the classic Olympic Club hotel in Centralia. All in all, it’s been another great week on the road and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
When I left you last week, I was up in Clallam Bay and headed back into Olympic National Park for another backpacking adventure. My trailhead for this trek was in an area of the park called Sol Duc, so I had a campground booked there for the night before I set off. Most people go to Sol Duc to see the famous triple waterfall at Sol Duc Falls and to soak in the natural hot springs. I’m sure you know by now how much I love to see and photograph waterfalls, and I like to do them as long exposures so I need a tripod to really do them properly. I certainly wasn’t carrying a heavy tripod with me in my backpack for three days, so I made the mile-and-a-half roundtrip stroll to the falls that afternoon before my hike began. This let me get the photos I wanted of the falls and also scout out the trailhead, take photos of the maps and information for reference and get a feel for the first mile of my hike for the following morning. It was a beautiful, shaded walk and the waterfall really is something to see. I spent the rest of the afternoon packing my backpack, making some adjustments and mentally preparing for the days ahead. My hike this time was the 21 mile High Divide and Seven Lakes Basin Loop which I planned to do over three days. The mileage was reasonable, but there was also going to be several thousand feet of elevation change along the way, so I wanted to be sure I had a good plan in my head. When my bag was packed and I was satisfied with my plan, I ate some pasta and got a good night’s sleep.
Monday morning wasn’t a rushed one. My wilderness permit had me camping at Deer Lake which was only 4 or 5 miles up the trail so there was no need for a super early start. I ended up enjoying a solid breakfast and then heading off into the forest around 11am. There was definitely a fair bit of climbing involved, but nothing too severe and I actually found the trail to be well maintained and easier than I had expected. I got to Deer Lake in just over two hours and had a late lunch when I arrived. I set up my camp and took a stroll around the lake, which was quite lovely, and then settled in to read my book and enjoy a quiet afternoon in the sun. It’s definitely a different world out there in the wilderness where life is more governed by the daylight and access to water and noise and distractions are at a minimum. I had my dinner early and after the sun went down at about 7:30, I had enough twilight left to read a few more chapters before crawling into my tent for the night. It was colder up at that altitude than it had been along the Hoh River Trail and I was glad I had an extra layer as I definitely needed it that night.
I did get an early start on Tuesday though, as that was going to be my big day on the High Divide. I had my coffee and my breakfast, got packed and hit the trail before 9. It was a pretty good climb up to the ridgeline, but it was worth every step when I got my first view of the iconic Mount Olympus. At only 7,980’ (2,432m), Mount Olympus isn’t really that high, but it is jagged and glaciated and is really quite something to see. The day was completely clear as well, without a cloud in the sky. If I turned my head in the other direction, I was looking down at the Seven Lakes Basin (which had quite a few more than seven lakes by my count) and was also quite a beautiful sight to see. By that point I was surrounded on all sides by the Olympic Mountain Range and everywhere I looked was spectacular. It also seemed that the view just kept getting better with every step I took. I had my lunch high atop Bogachiel Peak which had a magnificent 360 degree view of all of the above. As if that wasn’t good enough, the entire trail was lined with huge, delicious blueberries – more blueberries than I’ve ever seen in my life. And this time of year, where there are berries, there are also bears and I spotted my first of two big, beautiful black bears that day right after lunch. He was devouring the berries like there was no tomorrow and really couldn’t care less about me. As if that wasn’t enough, I also spotted an Olympic Marmot, a species of marmot only found on the Olympic Peninsula. What a magical afternoon in the mountains! As I continued along the ridge, the Blue Glacier started to come into view. This was the glacier I had turned around just short of seeing on my hike last week, so I felt quite vindicated when it came into view on this hike. I was up on the High Divide for most of the day and enjoyed every minute of it, but I still had about 4 miles to hike to my campsite at Lower Bridge Creek, so in late afternoon it was time to say goodbye to the glaciers and high peaks and make my way down past Heart Lake and on down the hill. I had a great site for the night next to a meadow and in the shadow of a small but beautiful peak. I was hungry and tired when I got there, so I got dinner going right away, got set up and was in bed and sound asleep by 8pm.
That middle day was a big one, and with only 6 miles back down to my van I slept in a bit and enjoyed a leisurely morning around camp. My tent was quite dewy and I was happy to get it dried out completely before I put it away. I enjoyed the sun on my face, a couple of cups of coffee and a few chapters in my book, but mostly I enjoyed the silence of the backcountry, knowing that I was on my way back into the world of cell phones and noise. I finally got packed up and started down around 11, and hardly ran into anyone along the way. When I was almost back to the trailhead, I met a trio of lovely older ladies who were out on a short walk and reminiscing about their earlier backpacking adventures which included the hike I was just completing. I really enjoyed our conversation and was happy to share my experiences with them of my time on the trail. I spent the last hour or so of the hike really looking at the mushrooms out there as there are over 400 species of mushroom in the park and some of them are quite unusual and different looking. I strolled back into the parking lot around 3pm, hopped in my van and headed back to the Sol Duc resort where I grabbed a quick shower and a cold beer and then continued down the hill. I made my way out to the Storm King Visitor Center parking lot where I found a picnic table and cleaned, sorted and put away all of my gear. I was actually quite pleased with how clean and organized my van looked when I was done, and made my way just down the road to the Crescent Lake Lodge for a delicious steak dinner, a nice glass of red wine and a perfect, civilized last night in Olympic. It was quite a visit, and I’m really glad that I took the time to see so much of the park as I had only seen snippets of it in the past. I definitely left with a whole different appreciation for what this region has to offer.
My belly full of steak and my head full of wine and my legs and body worn out, I should have slept like a baby. And I did, right up until about 3am when I awoke to the pitter-patter of little feet, and not in a good way. Sometime, somewhere, some critter got into my van and had managed to find its way into the space between the inner wall and outer shell of my van. It was scampering back and forth, but completely and totally out of sight and out of reach and there was no way I could get back to sleep with it running around. When it got light out, I cleared everything out of the back of my van with the hope that it would be under my seats somewhere and I could chase it out the back. It wasn’t (that was when I realized where it actually was, which is quite a different problem). Unfortunately, I knew that the only way I was going to get it out was with a mousetrap, so I bid farewell to Olympic and headed on down the highway to Port Angeles. I got some groceries and picked up a mousetrap and got it all set up and then went into the library to get some work done and hope it did its thing. I can’t have it gnawing through all of my wires and insulation, not to mention I would never get to sleep with it in there. I wish I could give it a fair warning and let it just leave my van, but that’s not how the world works. After a few hours in the library, I went back to my van and found the dead mouse in my trap. I spent the rest of the evening wandering around Port Angeles which is definitely a town that has its struggles, but they’re trying. I appreciate a town that is making the effort to paint murals on their buildings, keep storefronts open and create some public art displays and Port Angeles was doing all of those things. It was clean, the people were friendly and there were some great stores, bars and restaurants. It wasn’t a town I was going to hang out in for long, but it was a nice place for the night.
That night I was really looking forward to getting some sleep, but around midnight I heard more scampering around in my ceiling and hoped it was another mouse and not the ghost of the one I had already killed. Frustrated and tired, I reset my mouse trap and it didn’t take too long for this second (and hopefully final) mouse to come out from hiding and meet its fate. I was able to get back to sleep and finally catch up on a little bit of rest.
The next morning was Friday and I was on my way to Port Townsend. I knew as soon as I pulled into town that I was going to like it there. Port Townsend is at the entrance of Puget Sound and in the early days of the state it was the main port of entry into Washington. The people thought it was going to be the “New York of the West”, so they built grand and expensive buildings and homes in the Victorian style of the time. When the railroads chose to end their line in Seattle and Tacoma instead of Port Townsend, the town’s economy would suffer tremendously. Thankfully, in the 1960s they decided to restore what old buildings they could and change course towards tourism and that seems to be working out okay for them. I really enjoyed wandering around town and taking photos of the beautiful waterfront area and up the hill in Uptown and stopping into the little shops and bars. In the evening, I saw the Friday night lights of high school football at the little Memorial Stadium at the end of town, so I went in to support the local Rivals team. Whoever they were playing was far bigger and better though, and with a 41-0 halftime score, I called it a game and wandered down to a little bar called Sirens for a drink. There was a band playing and they were quite strange and not to my liking, so I went up the hill to the Uptown Pub for a beer and then called it a night.
I spent the first bit of my Saturday in the little local history museum which, frankly, was disappointing. They charged $9 to get in and there was hardly anything to see inside, and this in a town with a fascinating history. I have been in museums in tiny little towns with way more to see and read about. I doubt I was even there for an hour. Afterwards, I drove just outside of town to the old Fort Worden which was once an army base and is now a lovely state park. I went out to Point Wilson and toured the lighthouse there and then wandered around the old base for a while. After finishing my wandering, I took off and cruised a couple of hours down the highway to the state capital of Olympia. I got into town just in time for the 4:30 kickoff for my Penn State Nittany Lions in their biggest game of the year so far against the Oregon Ducks. I watched the game at Charlie’s Sports Bar which was a nice little place to be. The bartender was great and there were some friendly local characters in there watching the game with me. The Oregon team dominated the game and even though we tied it up in the fourth quarter, we would go on to lose in double overtime. It was disappointing, but it seems to be a very familiar story at this point in time. We just can’t win the big games. After the game I took a nice long stroll around the Olympia Historic District, stopping into a couple of bars along the way. I am a big fan of state capitals, especially when they are not the state’s biggest cities. Being from Washington DC myself, I am very familiar with how a capital city works and they always feel a bit like home to me. Olympia is a sleepy little city, but the people are friendly and it seemed like a big city after the last couple of weeks.
Sunday was a quiet day for me. I went for a nice long stroll around town in the morning and took a few photos as it was supposed to start raining later on in the day. Then I hit the gym and ran a few errands before going back downtown for the evening. I sat by the lake below the capitol building for a while and then took another walk around the old town area. One of the local breweries was celebrating Octoberfest, so I stopped in for a pint of their fest bier, and then I grabbed a slice of pizza and went back to my van to watch some TV and take it easy.
I spent the next morning touring the capitol building which was really interesting. David was my tour guide and he told us all about the building, the state government and some of the history of the area. The legislature was not in session, so we could sit in both chambers and discuss how they work. I enjoyed learning that Washington legislators are part-time employees, so they all go home and go back to their regular jobs when they aren’t in session. This keeps out the career politicians and ensures that the people in charge understand the working people’s world. All of the chandeliers in the capitol were made by Tiffany and Co. so were quite beautiful and there was a lot of marble used in the building. I got to go into the old vault at the treasurer’s office which I thought was cool and enjoyed poking around the rest of the building. There really isn’t much else to see in Olympia, so I spent the afternoon at the library catching up on some things. In the evening I went to the theatre to see the new Downton Abbey movie which I really enjoyed. I love the actors and their characters, but more than anything it’s the scenery, cars and costumes that really do it for me. It was a marvelous escape for the evening.
Yesterday I hit the gym early and then went back to the Capitol to get some photos as the sun was poking through the clouds for a little bit. Then I went back to the library to work on some photos. When I finished there, I bid Olympia goodbye and moved just down the road to Centralia, another old lumber town. . I had a room booked at the old Olympic Club in Centralia, which is a century old men’s club halfway between Portland and Seattle which has been taken over by the McMenamin brothers in recent years. I’ve mentioned the McMenamins before in this blog, but they are brothers who buy up old buildings and pubs and restore them in a classic fashion. They have many establishments in Portland and Oregon in general, but also a handful in Washington. The rooms in the Olympic Club used to be used as a brothel, but now they’ve been restored and named after people who worked in the club over the years and each room tells that person’s story. My room was Ione Sellard who was the first woman to work at the club, and it tells her story and about the challenges she faced (there wasn’t a women’s bathroom in the club until the late 1970s!). The club itself is beautiful with a giant old woodstove and a magnificent bar under Tiffany lamps. I really enjoyed all of the history of the place and it was nice to get in out of the rain for a night.
Today, once I’ve published this newsletter and checked out, I will be on my way to Tacoma. Then I hope to head up the west side of Puget Sound and then take the ferry over to Seattle. I’ve spent a lot of time in Seattle in my life, so I probably won’t be there for too long, but I do want to check a few things out and take some photos while I’m there. From Seattle I will head north again and start to visit some of the islands off the coast of Washington which I am really looking forward to as well. I’m not sure where I will be at this time next week, but I hope you will come back and see what I’ve been up to. Have a great week out there, y’all, and thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike