I felt better though when Kent called and said, “I think I stayed on 101 too long”. He wasn’t lost though, just taking a different route than planned! He had his Garmin on as well. I still believe that paper maps are more foolproof. We recovered and now all the vehicles are back together just outside of Seattle. We head for North Cascades tomorrow.

I believe I found the perfectly decorated Christmas tree. A Sitka Spruce about 30 feet tall with graceful branches and an airy shape. Each branch was tipped with the bright green of new Spring growth and the boughs were draped with tinsel-like clusters of moss. No store bought decorations could look more festive.

The Hurricane Ridge-Hurricane Hill hike in Olympic National Park is one not to miss. Particularly if you are here in the Spring (this year that means mid to late July). Just as the snow retreats the flowers jump out of the ground and bloom. The sunnier faces are covered with purples, reds, yellows, reds blues and whites. Sometimes in dense clusters and sometime is bright solitary spikes. The breezes that push up over the steep ridges carry the heavy scent of new pine and flowers. Oh, if I could just bottle it! It will be absolutely magnificent given another week or so to reach full bloom.
There were black tailed deer everywhere, cute Olympic Marmots posed for many a picture, and a couple new tundra-nesting birds showed up. The trail was pretty steep and the wind was chilly, it was about 47F or so; but it was a wonderful walk.

The park has three temperate rain forests. The biggest difference from a tropical rainforest is that all the big trees are conifers, Sitka spruce, hemlock and Douglas fir. All else is classic rainforest-esk. There are more colors of green than would seem possible and the air smells like it is growing. Everything is shrouded in moss or covered in lichens or ferns. We were sure either dinosaurs or Ewoks would appear at any moment. It is pretty amazing how much life is packed into every inch of space. It was a soggy but great day.

The talk of the park is the upcoming demolition of a dam that has blocked the Elwha River and the upstream migration of salmon for 100 years. They managed to get tribal, business, national and state organizations to all agree and the dam is coming down. This is not the kind of thing that I ever thought of as reversible but they have enormous resources going into recreating the original habits and landscape. It would be great to see how it all works out in 100 years or so.

That is what the folks at Rainier said too; but I think Olympic has them beat. This place is just plain WET. Rain, clouds, fog, condensate on everything.
We hiked to a couple waterfalls and got a quick peak of the snow cap on Mt Olympus and a beautiful glacier carved lake. Crescent lake is 600 feet deep, crystal clear, and surrounded by steep wooded mountains. Black tailed deer seems to love this place. We have seen a number of them along the tails and road including a doe and fawn.

Guess what. It is rainy here. The forecast for tomorrow is for partly sunny so we are doing a little napping, some hike planning, and visitor center stuff today.

I didn’t see nearly as much of the great scenery when focusing on driving. I think Kent really orchestrated my driving so that I would be reminded to appreciate how he usually chauffeurs me around. It is a wonderful luxury.

Next is Olympic national Park. We are leaving the trailer in Seattle for a week because the sites in the campgrounds out on the Peninsula are really pretty small. We still want a car for bumming around in the park though so I will be driving it separately.

A grey fox came trotting down the road toward us. He wasn’t the slightest bit timid or afraid. We stopped the car and waited for him to go on his way. One of the rangers had told us they were pretty brazen. That certainly seems to be the case.