Olympic National Park

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Although Mike and I have traveled quite extensively as a couple, I have never really taken any trips with my family, the only two exceptions being a week-long stay in Southern California when I was 13 and traveling to Italy and Greece with my sister in 2006. During Easter of this year, my aunt Stacie and I had discussed the possibility of organizing a family camping trip as we had never done so before. Mike and I are not fans of camping, so I suggested Lake Crescent as I had previously read that in addition to a campground, the Log Cabin Resort also had several different cabins to rent. We had to make sure that we found a place that was dog friendly, as Stacie wanted to bring their dog Chloe and we also wanted our Golden Retrievers (Sam and Sadie) to come along. We made no definitive plans that day but within a few weeks, I had the cabins reserved at the resort. We figured we would base our stay in the Olympic National Park at the lake while we day-tripped to nearby destinations such as the Hoh Rain Forest and the coastal beaches.

Day 1 (Friday, August

15th, 2008)

We had an early start this morning and left our house by 9:15. We first stopped by my parent's house as we had to transfer Sam and Sadie from my vehicle to my mom’s car. Mike drove his own car as it contained all of our equipment and supplies for the weekend. Tom, Stacie, Olivia, and Emma, and Chloe were awaiting our arrival. After we were all arranged appropriately, we headed off for the Edmonds to Kingston ferry route. We had planned on taking the 10:10 departure, but were running late so ended up on the 10:45 boat. As we waited for the boat to arrive in Edmonds, several of us got out of the car and soaked up the sun, which felt a tad uncomfortable at times as it was quite warm out.

The ferry ride was uneventful; Mike and I made sure to continue our tradition by buying some Ivar’s clam chowder. Once in Kingston, we drove up through the charming and quaint town of Port Gamble, over the long Hood Canal Bridge, into Sequim, and eventually through the streets of Port Angeles, where the weather changed from sunny to cloudy. I had wanted to stop at the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center located within the National Park, but decided against doing so due to the clouds. It would have been pointless to drive all the way up to the viewpoint when there really wouldn't have been much to see due to the lack of visibility. From cloudy Port Angeles, the drive to Lake Crescent took about 30 minutes.

As a side note, Mike, Kimberly, and I had seen the beautiful lake the previous December during one of the worst recorded storms in history on the Olympic Peninsula. We had attempted to take Kimberly’s friend Colin (who is from England) over to the Hoh Rain Forest. However, our plans were derailed as we rounded Lake Crescent; all of the roads had been flooded out and were closed to traffic.

Needless to say, our impression of the lake was much different than the one we had seen on the dark and stormy December day. The sun was trying it’s hardest to break through the clouds and the glassy water of the lake was incredibly smooth. We arrived at the Log Cabin Resort and checked into our three “camping log cabins” that we would stay in for the first of the three nights. I had attempted to book all three nights in the kitchenette cabins as they had a partial kitchen and full bath, but they had none available for Friday evening. Instead, we reserved three camping logs cabins that each held two beds but no bathrooms. We were all pleasantly surprised with the interior of the cabins; we had expected old buildings with not so nice interiors. However, the cabins actually seemed somewhat new and were very well taken care of and surprisingly clean. Tom, Stacie, Olivia, and Emma shared a cabin, while Mike, Kimberly, and I stayed in one together, and Michael and my mom stayed in the third one. The only thing we did not like about the resort was the fact that dogs had to be leashed at all times and were not allowed to walk near the beach area. It was rather annoying having to constantly walk them around or tie their leashes to the picnic area.

It took us about 30 minutes to unload all of the cars, and then we sat down to eat lunch. We hung around the resort for the next hour until we decided to check out some of the beaches nearby on the strait of Juan de Fuca. I’ve read and heard numerous wonderful things about the many beaches on the Pacific side of the Peninsula, but nothing about those about 20 minutes north of Lake Crescent. Our first stop was Salt Creek County Park. As we arrived, the sun was finally starting to shine, so the ocean water looked gorgeous. We walked for about a half mile until we reached the beach. We took the dogs off of their leashes and they had an absolute blast running around in the ocean waves. I was surprised at how soft the sand was; it reminded me of the sand I had seen in Oregon and not like sand you would normally encounter on the rocky beaches of Washington State. I took a ton of photos and we stayed for about an hour. We then left and headed to Freshwater Bay County Park, which didn’t end up being much of anything with the exception of a good place to launch a boat from. Needless to say, we didn't stay here long.

We then drove back to the resort and began preparing for dinner. Michael started up the fire in the BBQ pit and we roasted several varieties of hot dogs. Dinner also included baked beans and my mom's delicious macaroni salad.

After dinner, Emma, Tom, and Michael headed down to the water to do some evening fishing. Mike and I stopped by while I took photos and Mike skipped rocks. Unfortunately, neither Michael nor Emma were successful in their fishing attempts.

We later went back to the cabins and roasted s’mores over the campfire for an after dinner snack.

Day 2 (Saturday, August 16th, 2008)

Having received a poor night of sleep, most of us awoke early on Saturday morning. The mattresses we slept on the night before were terribly uncomfortable, especially with the plastic sheet liner and the restless dogs. It also didn't help that my sister Kimberly had one of her infamous "laugh attacks" that lasted non-stop for about 30 minutes.

We knew it was going to be a scorcher out this day as it felt close to 70 degrees at only 8:00 AM! We all grazed for breakfast eating danish from Costco and my Aunt Stacie's famous sugar cookies. Eventually, we finally got motivated enough to pack all of our belongings as we were moving cabins. When I originally reserved the cabins four months prior, I had attempted to book all three nights in the rustic kitchenette cabins; however, they did not have two available for the first night, so that is why we stayed in the camping log cabins.

Unfortunately, we had to wait a few hours for the staff to clean both of the cabins, but we finally got into the first one right after 11:00. It was located on the main lawn of the resort and overlooked the lake. The cabin’s themselves were much nicer than I expected; they were old but still retained lots of their original charm (i.e. single paned glass). The cabin contained two beds and a foldout couch; enough room for me, Mike, Kimberly, my mom and Michael. Tom, Stacie, and the girls had a cabin a few hundred feet away that had two beds along with a kitchen and bathroom.

After we had unpacked everything, Mike and I left to start our road trip for the day. Initially, I had wanted to visit Neah Bay, Shi Shi Beach, and Ozette Lake; however, due to time constraints and extra unplanned visits to Cape Flattery and the Makah Museum in Neah Bay, we didn’t have enough time to stop by Ozette Lake.

While Mike and I were out exploring the Olympic Peninsula, my family stayed back at Lake Crescent and tried their best to stay cool in the 90 degree weather. Kimberly, Michael, Emma and the dogs enjoyed swimming in the lake. Later, they all left to escape the heat and did a short hike to nearby Marymere Falls.

The drive to Neah Bay probably took about one and a half hours, with a stop in Sekiu and Clallam Bay for gas and snacks. We had originally planned on just driving through Neah Bay, but as we were driving, I read about the Makah Museum in a guidebook which sounded very interesting so we decided to stop in.

The museum (also known as the Makah Cultural and Research Center) was created as a result of artifacts that were excavated from a Makah village in the early 1970's that had been partially buried by a mudslide nearly 500 years prior. A sampling of these artifacts and many other Makah tribal art pieces are housed in this well thought-out and designed museum, which was actually much larger than what I would have ever expected. Some of my favorite things at the museum were the cedar dug-out canoes and a replica of the traditional long house, things I had never seen before with my own eyes. After touring all of the exhibits in the museum, we stopped in a room where a local Indian woman was demonstrating basket weaving. Apparently, she had been working on her basket on and off for almost a year. There are many intricate steps and processes involved in making a basket and she was very proud to talk with us about her work.

After leaving the museum, we decided to drive to Cape Flattery, which is a few miles northwest of Neah Bay. The cape is the furthest northwest point in the contiguous United States. In order to view the cape, one must complete a .75 mile downhill hike that will lead to several viewpoints. As we got out of our car and walked towards the trail head, we almost turned around as we overheard a couple telling another couple that the trail took 30 minutes down and 30 minutes back up. We didn’t have an hour available as we still had many more things we wanted to see. At the trail head, we saw two women approaching with a dog and asked about the difficulty of the hike. They informed us that the trail was actually very easy and only took about 15 minutes to walk down, so we decided to go ahead and go.

The trail was relatively easy with just a slight decline down to the viewpoints and was well maintained with many cedar boardwalks. The views from here were absolutely gorgeous with the crashing waves against the rocky shores and the sun shining down brightly on us.

After finishing the hike, we left and drove about another 30 minutes to the trail head of Shi Shi Beach on the Makah Indian reservation. I had read many wonderful reviews of the beach but was most interested in obtaining some beautiful photographs of the famous Point of Arches and the many sea stacks and jagged rocks. When we arrived, we saw that the trail was two miles in and two miles out. Also wanting to visit Ozette Lake, we were detoured by the amount of time the hike might take, so we decided to leave and heads toward the lake. However, I was not entirely happy with this decision as I had really wanted to take some beach photographs, so we immediately turned back around and I decided to forgo seeing the lake; that will have to wait until another trip to the park. I’m sure the people in the parking lot of the trail head thought we were quite strange for having left suddenly and then returned so quickly.

We changed into our hiking shoes, grabbed some water, and began the hike. The initial park of the hike was through forest and then eventually came to a clearing where we walked upon boardwalks for quite some time. While the sun was still out at this point, it seemed to be dissipating, so I kept my fingers crossed that it would stay out. The hike itself was very easy with little elevation gain but the trail was filled with mud in many places making it very difficult to keep our shoes and legs clean. It took us about 40 minutes to get from the trail head down to the beach.

Towards the end of the trail, we ran into a Japanese family that was planning on camping down at the beach. The strangest part was that of the 15 family members, at least five of them had to have been under the age of three and all were in STROLLERS!. These crazy people had dragged strollers through all of that mud along the trails; that was quite an impressive feat. We passed the family and quickly came to the end of the trail, but not before having to descend a practically vertical trail. We had to carefully place each of our steps but luckily it only took about ten minutes to get down and then we finally arrived at the cloudy beach.

Honestly, I was slightly disappointed with the beach. I’m sure a huge portion of my feelings were attributed to the crappy and depressing gray weather, but I just wasn’t very happy. I did take some pictures but was sad knowing that they would have been 1000 times better had it been sunny out. We were quite surprised at the number of campers on the beach; there had to have been several dozen.

We spent about 20 minutes at the beach and then began heading back up the trail. As we were ascending the very steep section, we ran back into the Japanese family, who were very slowly and carefully bringing down all of their camping gear and strollers; I definitely did not envy them in the slightest!

As we headed back to the parking lot, we ran into many people, all of whom were planning on camping down at the beach. In fact, I think that we only ran into three other groups of day hikers; all of the rest were campers.

From the cloudy trail head, we began the long drive back to Lake Crescent. As we approached Neah Bay, the sun appeared again and we never saw anymore of those dark and gray clouds for the rest of the day.

When we arrived back at the cabin, my family had just began eating so we thew some bratwurst on the grill and ate dinner with them on the main lawn of the property.

Later that evening as we sat around the fire, we noticed that the moon was beginning to come out from behind the mountains and was reflecting beautifully on the lake. Mike and I got out our tripod and we spent some time attempting to get clear night shots; something we never would have been able to do prior to buying the Nikon camera and the tripod. When taking photographs at night, the shutter speed must be set very slow and any movement can completely ruin the picture by creating blurriness. Placing a camera on a tripod and thus preventing movement fixes this problem.

Day 3 (Sunday, August 16th, 2008)

On Sunday, we all left sunny Lake Crescent around 9:30 in order to get an early start for our long day-trip to the Hoh Rain Forest and more beaches along the coast.

We arrived in the city of Forks via Highway 101 around 11:15. From here, we drove East through many winding roads back into the boundary of the Olympic National Park to the Hoh Rain Forest, finally arriving at 12:00. The Hoh Rain Forest is one of the few temperate rain forests in the world and receives approximately 12 to 14 feet of precipitation each year. What all this wet stuff equates to is lots and lots of densely green moss! Due to the size of our group, we decided to complete an easy and quick hike; we chose the Hall of Mosses trail, which took about 40 minutes to complete, while Mike and Emma stayed back with the dogs. Unfortunately, dogs are never allowed on trails within National Parks unless they are guide dogs. This is unfortunate as the responsible dog owners (such as ourselves) who actually clean up after their dogs and make sure they don't wander are punished by dog irresponsible owners who leave doggy surprises along the trail and allow their dogs to romp around off of the trail; it's very frustrating for us!

After finishing the trail, we met back up with Emma, Mike and the dogs in the grassy area near the parking lot for lunch. At this point, the weather was still quite warm and beautiful out so we all enjoyed some lunch and snacks as did many other families.

From the rain forest, we drove West, stopping in Forks about 45 minutes later for some food at Sully's Drive In. From Forks, we continued heading West, eventually stopping in the tiny town of La Push, which is home to the Quileute Indian Tribe. Currently, the town is probably best known for it's importance in the popular Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers; a character named Jacob lives in this part of Washington. Our cousin Olivia happens to be a huge fan of the Twilight series, and she was able to buy a handmade "Twilight" bracelet at a store in town; she was very pleased with her unique and original find!

Notoriety aside, La Push is home to a very depressed looking town with gorgeous views of the Pacific Ocean. These two glaringly obvious aspects of La Push don't seem to fit together and are quite a strange combination. Unfortunately, on the drive over from Forks, it changed from sunny and pleasant to cloudy and cold. In addition, we also had to contend with fog, so being able to view James Island and the many sea stacks was virtually impossible (and highly disappointing!). We were at the ocean though, so it was a requirement that the dogs get out and play as we hadn't driven all this way for nothing! Mike carefully walked the dogs down to the beach through hundreds of pieces of driftwood and when he was finally able to unleash them, they went crazy! They had such an enjoyable time running around on the beach and into the water; it put a huge smile on my face and made me temporarily forget my sadness from the lack of sunshine! Mike and Michael also had a good time skipping stones in the ocean water.

After La Push, we headed towards Rialto Beach which was 15 minutes away. Rialto is one of the more popular beaches in the Olympic National Park filled with lots of driftwood, sea stacks, and a good walking trail. Unfortunately, as seemed to be the case for most of our visits to the Pacific Ocean on this trip, it was cloudy and gray at the beach with the thunderous ocean waves crashing in; not my idea of the most pleasant visit, but I had no choice in the matter! Unlike some of the other beaches we had seen on this trip, Rialto Beach had very rocky sand, including many small and colorful pebble stones.

We spent about 20 minutes at Rialto before heading back to Lake Crescent. We all figured that it was probably still clear back at the lake, but as we drove through the peninsula, we realized that it was overcast everywhere!

When we arrived back at the lake, Mike and I began cooking an early dinner as we were both starving!

Later that evening, it began to rain very lightly. After the rain went away, we noticed that the sun began to push through the clouds, creating one of the most beautiful rainbows I have ever seen in my entire life. Behind the rainbow was an intensely pink colored sky, resulting in a gorgeous sunset. The sight in the sky was so incredible that it brought everyone at the campground out from whatever they had been doing. Many people grabbed their camera in an attempt to capture the colorful sky. The problem with sunsets it that the colors in the sky change so very quickly, so one must work fast and efficiently if they want to get a good shot.

We all sat around the campfire that night for many hours, conversing with one another as we enjoyed s'mores and campfire popcorn; yum!

Day 4 (Monday, August 18th, 2008)

Monday was the final day of our weekend trip. My mom and Aunt Stacie awoke early to begin cooking the massive amounts of breakfast food we had all brought along. Stacie cooked an entire box of Bisquick pancakes while my mom had three packages of bacon to contend with. Breakfast that morning also included scrambled eggs and spicy hash browns. Surprisingly, the massive amount of food at the table was practically gone at the end of breakfast.

After eating, we all cleaned up the cabins and packed the cars. We were ready to go right at check-out time at 11:00. Tom and I walked down to the office to pay the remaining bill. Somehow, the Log Cabin Resort undercharged us by about $250. When she first stated the balance, she quoted us $300 less than what she should have. I immediately asked "are you sure that's correct?". She then said "for your honesty, the balance is ..." and only stated about $50 more than the first time. I wasn't going to argue with her a second time as I had provided her with ample opportunity to correct her mistake. For the three nights at the resort, it ended up costing only $65 per person; not too bad if I say so myself!

From Lake Crescent, we drove Southeast to the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort which took about 45 minutes. The resort contains 99-105 degree mineral water that is piped into three large outdoor pools. Neither Mike nor myself had much interest in visiting these hot springs as I knew the resort was very developed and not in a natural setting. I thought that Kimberly had explained this to the others, so I was very surprised when everyone else stated they wanted to go. Olivia and Mike stayed in the cars with the dogs while the rest of us walked inside. As Stacie walked towards the back of the lodge where the windows provided a view of the pools and hot tubs, she was very disappointed with what she saw. She and my mom had expected the natural hot spring setting and weren't happy with what they had available, so we all decided to leave.

Afterward, we started the long drive home. We eventually boarded the ferry from Kingston to Edmonds, but not before first stopping at the crepe shop in town. Mike ordered a chocolate and banana crepe while I selected a strawberry, chocolate, and whip cream crepe; both were delicious!

While the weather only cooperated about half the time, we all immensely enjoyed our family trip to Lake Crescent and the Olympic National Park. Although the Calkins, Fernandez, and Churchill's only live about 20 minutes apart, we don't spend enough time together as we should. During this trip we decided that we should make the family outing a yearly event although a new destination will occur each year.

On a personal note, I was very disappointed that both our trips to the Pacific Ocean beaches occurred on very cloudy and gray days. I had high hopes for taking many beautiful beach pictures and was saddened when I realized that would be an impossible feat. I guess that means that another trip to Olympic National Park will occur sometime in our future! Mike and I discussed that for our next trip, we should complete the entire loop on the peninsula, staying in each place for only one night. I've read numerous wonderful things about the lodges within the park such as Lake Crescent Lodge and Kalaloch Lodge. I also want to visit Lake Quinault and Ozette Lake and more of the beaches further South on the coast such as Ruby Beach. One of these days, I would also like to make it up to Hurricane Ridge without experiencing cloudy skies; we'll see if that ever happens as it ALWAYS is the case when we are in the Port Angeles area!

I was however very impressed by the beauty of Lake Crescent, especially during the early morning hours and late evenings when gleaming reflections would cover the gorgeous lake. I was also surprisingly satisfied with our experience at the Log Cabin Resort. All of the cabins we rented were definitely rustic, but so much nicer than what I had pictured beforehand. We would stay there again without hesitation and recommend it to anyone wanting a "comfortable" experience in nature.

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Photos

Log Cabin Resort
Mom in front of one of the camping log cabins

Sam and Sadie
The pups with a glimpse of the rustic kitchenette cabins in the background

Salt Creek County Park
Our view from the walk along the way to the beach

Sam
Such a photogenic dog