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I realized that I never posted about the Olympic hike ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
corivax and I did last May.
The Olympic National Park Wilderness Coast is the last undeveloped coastline in the continental US. We went from Third Beach to the Hoh River, about 18 miles, over 4 days and 3 nights. It was muddy, exhausting and beautiful.
Seriously beautiful. I can appreciate the beauty of other landscapes, but for me this is the platonic ideal. It was like this the entire way.
Except for the section that aren't on the beach, they're more like this.
There were 4 headlands that couldn't be crossed on the beach level, because they looked like this.
Of course, the beach tends to be surrounded by cliffs, which makes getting over the headlands non-trivial. The Park Service has kindly provided some interesting ways to get over them.
...some aren't in very good repair...
...and some are more interesting than others. (The most interesting section we didn't get any pictures of, because it was the seriously bad kind of interesting and we were too busy holding on for dear life. Maybe I'll talk someone more graphically gifted than myself into drawing a diagram of the situation.)
The second day started really nice. We got up early to make it around the next headland at low tide.
But it quickly turned wet and miserable. Heavy, soaking mist for hours. We finally stopped for some breakfast, at which point I really learned to appreciate the insulated, covered mugs. (Though hiking down a wilderness beach idly sipping on a hot beverage involves a certain amount of cognitive dissonance.)
Following what became the standard pattern, the day improved towards the afternoon. (This is from the top of the rope ladder seen above.)
The overland sections of the trail tended to be very, very muddy.
Being mostly unimproved, you have to ford across a couple of streams. Which sounds romantic, until you're halfway across with 40 pounds on your back, painfully making your way across slippery, pokey rocks on numb feet, trying not to fall into water that was glacier a couple of hours ago. But the waterfall just upstream of the ford sure was pretty.
There are a couple of small improvements, from back when the Park Service had money, but they're pretty decayed. The trail has moved around as bits of it are taken out by falling trees or landslides. There were lots of both -- it's a dynamic place, the coastline constantly retreating from the fury of the open Pacific.
Normally I hate cooking. And the second night we were so tired we just munched on gorp and went to sleep. But camp cooking can be kind of fun. This was a fry bread kit I picked up for fun. It was awesome. (But next time I'm taking oil instead of butter for such things.)
The final headland. We got to it on the third night, and thought maybe we'd just head home early instead of setting up camp on the other side. Turns out the low tide wasn't very low that night, so after doing our best King Canute impersonations we trudged back and waited for the lower morning tide. The next morning we got around just fine, but being so powerless in the face of the elements was certainly an odd feeling for a jaded techy such as myself.
corivax and I did last May.The Olympic National Park Wilderness Coast is the last undeveloped coastline in the continental US. We went from Third Beach to the Hoh River, about 18 miles, over 4 days and 3 nights. It was muddy, exhausting and beautiful.
Seriously beautiful. I can appreciate the beauty of other landscapes, but for me this is the platonic ideal. It was like this the entire way.
Except for the section that aren't on the beach, they're more like this.
There were 4 headlands that couldn't be crossed on the beach level, because they looked like this.
Of course, the beach tends to be surrounded by cliffs, which makes getting over the headlands non-trivial. The Park Service has kindly provided some interesting ways to get over them.
...some aren't in very good repair...
...and some are more interesting than others. (The most interesting section we didn't get any pictures of, because it was the seriously bad kind of interesting and we were too busy holding on for dear life. Maybe I'll talk someone more graphically gifted than myself into drawing a diagram of the situation.)
The second day started really nice. We got up early to make it around the next headland at low tide.
But it quickly turned wet and miserable. Heavy, soaking mist for hours. We finally stopped for some breakfast, at which point I really learned to appreciate the insulated, covered mugs. (Though hiking down a wilderness beach idly sipping on a hot beverage involves a certain amount of cognitive dissonance.)
Following what became the standard pattern, the day improved towards the afternoon. (This is from the top of the rope ladder seen above.)
The overland sections of the trail tended to be very, very muddy.
Being mostly unimproved, you have to ford across a couple of streams. Which sounds romantic, until you're halfway across with 40 pounds on your back, painfully making your way across slippery, pokey rocks on numb feet, trying not to fall into water that was glacier a couple of hours ago. But the waterfall just upstream of the ford sure was pretty.
There are a couple of small improvements, from back when the Park Service had money, but they're pretty decayed. The trail has moved around as bits of it are taken out by falling trees or landslides. There were lots of both -- it's a dynamic place, the coastline constantly retreating from the fury of the open Pacific.
Normally I hate cooking. And the second night we were so tired we just munched on gorp and went to sleep. But camp cooking can be kind of fun. This was a fry bread kit I picked up for fun. It was awesome. (But next time I'm taking oil instead of butter for such things.)
The final headland. We got to it on the third night, and thought maybe we'd just head home early instead of setting up camp on the other side. Turns out the low tide wasn't very low that night, so after doing our best King Canute impersonations we trudged back and waited for the lower morning tide. The next morning we got around just fine, but being so powerless in the face of the elements was certainly an odd feeling for a jaded techy such as myself.
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