On Tuesday, July 26 [2022], I continued my solo circumnavigation of the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park. This was both my second visit to Olympic and only the second time I’d visited a National Park alone. (The first was the previous November when I stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park for a hike on my drive home from New Mexico). The first time I’d visited Olympic (a decade earlier in April 2012), it had been with Sean and Kathrin. But on that day too we did a day of highlights on a long drive between Portland and Seattle. Someday, I’ll visit Olympic and stay a while.
That April day with Kathrin and Sean, the weather had been more expected (cool, rainy). But on this late July day, it was 90 degrees at Hoh Rainforest, my next stop. It made for a completely different experience.
The road into Hoh was under massive construction, which delayed my getting to the parking area by an hour as cars entering and leaving had to wait their turns to use a now one-lane road.
At least the scenery was pleasant.
While I was waiting, Sean sent me a photo of Elsa, missing me back at home.
I reached the entrance station around 11:30.
I parked in the very busy, very sunny parking area. It had me a little off kilter. Yes, it was the summer, but it was a Tuesday. I didn’t think there wound be quite as huge a crowd.
Also it was straight-up hot. The car’s external temperature gauge in the hot parking lot under direct sun read 100 degrees.
But soon I was on the trails, hiking both the Hall of Mosses Trail and the Spruce Nature Trail for a combined total of two miles. Not too bad on a hot day.
It was just straight-up dry. What felt so weird was not only the sunshine, not only the heat, but the extreme dryness. It was hotter and drier than Kings Canyon. In a West that just gets immolated every summer now, it’s easy to think that a place as famously damp as Hoh would be safe, but on a day like this, it is much easier to realize that under the right conditions even Hoh could go up in flames like the Giant Forest at Sequoia National Park.
I was taking my time and taking lots of photos, so I was sort of keeping pace with a family with three young children, and we kept saying hi to each other. Or the parents would remind the kids to let me pass. Near the famous moss-laden Maples, the mom offered to take my picture since I was hiking alone.
I love that there are whole unexplored ecosystems in the canopies of these forests.
It was also fun to be back in Hoh with a much better camera. Olympic, Joshua Tree, and Isle Royale were the early Parks we’d visited when I just had my old Sony point and shoot. It was like getting a remastered set of photos. Except that the feel was so utterly different from last time.
Even a decade later, there were familiar sights, like this interesting old tree that I also took a picture of last time.
After Hall of Mosses, Spruce Nature Trail was less busy and I quickened my pace a bit.
Spruce Nature Trail leads its hikers down to the Hoh River under the blazing sun.
The root system of this huge fallen tree is like an art installation.
By 12:45 I was back in the car and headed out of the Hoh area. I was now a couple hundred miles and about four hours from Seattle. Time to continue on.
But a quick stop by the river rewarded me with a herd of Roosevelt Elk trying to stay cool.
On I went. I gassed up and got a few snacks for the car in Forks and then kept going.
As Sean and Kathrin and I had done, I stopped briefly at Crescent Lake to take in the view.
The road to the Elwha River area was closed, unfortunately. I had wanted to hike a bit and see the dam removal project firsthand. Next time…
I continued on to Port Angeles as it got later in the day. And I started on the road up to Hurricane Ridge. I figured, “This will be terrifying, but I can go as far as I want before I simply turn around.”
I got as far as the turnout right before the tunnels before I said, “Nope. I’m good. I’m done.” You can see the road cut in the slope in the upper right in the photo above.
I got some photos of Hurricane Ridge in the distance.
And then I headed back down. On the drive around the northeastern portion of the peninsula, I gave my friend Dale a call to catch up.
We said goodbye when my Google Maps route deposited me on the ferry across between Kingston and Edwards, north of Seattle.
From the ferry, I got a helluva view of Mount Rainier looming over metropolitan Seattle.
I was back in my hotel room by a quarter after seven.
Next morning, Wednesday, July 27 [2022] I was dressed and out the door before 4:30am to catch my 6:30am flight to Chicago.
I wasn’t actually going home though. O’Hare Airport was my layover spot before a flight to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Patrick and I would be in Ames with a client for a few days before driving home to Chicago the following Saturday, drawing my thirty-five days of travel to a close.