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Published: July 28th 2011
It has been a while since our last blog and given the fact that our time in the US is coming to an end we figured a new post would help us get back on track in documenting our experiences. I recently went on a few hikes that are blog worthy so there is no time like the present to start blogging again.
Next week we leave for a 26 day tour which includes Crater Lake, Sonoma, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento, Arroyo Grande, LA, Boston, Vermont, Connecticut, NYC, Chicago, and the Mosher family farm in Illinois.
Realizing that our time is limited we are trying to take advantage of our proximity to old friends and new places. Elyse’s friend Holly and her husband Jason recently moved from San Diego to Bremerton, Washington. Elyse and Holly both worked at Enterprise and Jason did his medical residency at the Naval Hospital in San Diego. They were recently married on May 7th and are starting a new chapter of their lives in Bremerton. Jason is pretty stoked about being done with his residency and is taking the medical board exam tomorrow. We were officially their 1st visitors. The house was located
on a small bay that flowed from the sound. Every room seemed to have a great view of the water.
Jason planned a hike for us not too far from their home in the Olympic National Forest, located in the mountains above Port Angeles. On the way we stopped for lunch in Poulsbo, a small Dutch town right on the sound. There were all sorts of small shops, restaurants, and touristy attractions. A place Peggy, Elyse’s Mom, would love to shop J
Afterwards, we headed out satisfied with our meal and looking to get in a good hike. Atop the mountains within the Olympic National Park the views stretched for miles towards the west over the Juan De Fuca Strait and island of Vancouver. The weather was clear enough that we were able to see Victoria. To the East a range of snow covered mountains came together to form a deep and pristine valley.
On the way into the park we saw that there was a big up hill bicycle race. It was some 12 miles or so of vertical climbing for the riders. It looked painful and I even felt tired watching them ride. We were
on our way to Hurricane Ridge Trail but decided to stop at the visitor’s center about a mile and a half from the trail head. It was pretty cool to see all the different nationalities coming together to see this National Park. The deer in the area had become very accustomed to the visitors and felt comfortable grazing mere feet from people. We got a few photos and commented that the mountain background to the east reminded us of Tiger Leaping Gorge in Li Jiang, Yunnan Province, China.
The trail head started at 5,000 feet and ascended to 5,750 over 1-1/2 miles. It was not a very difficult hike and the views were amazing. We saw a black bear climbing the steep slope of the nearby meadow. Despite the fact that you could barely make out the creature as it was over 400 yards away, Elyse became nervous as Jason had just told us a story about one of the Dr’s at the naval base being mauled by a black bear last week. The meadows above the timber line were also home to families of marmots. Marmots look like giant ground hogs and tend to spend most of the
lives near their burrows foraging for food. They were pretty cool animals and related to ground squirrels.
After the hike we headed back to Bremerton for a late dinner. It was a very relaxing evening eating and drinking with friends. The next day, we had breakfast which included an egg scramble, toast, and delicious coffee. Holly and Jason were going to take the ferry into Seattle while Elyse and I headed for Gig Harbor as we didn’t hear from our 2 sets of couple friends, Raph & Marieka and Martin & Staci. We walked around Gig Harbor for about an hour and had some frozen lavender lemonade, as we saw many lavender farms on our drive to Olympic National Park.
The next hike that I went on was the 4T hike in Portland. The 4T stands for Tail, Tram, Trolley, and Train. Accompanying me was my buddy Scott and his wife Negar from New Zealand (who we visited in Auckland Feb 2010) and my old friend Maltman (who lives in Alaska) who was one of my many roommates in San Diego. All three were in town for a wedding. The trail is 4.5 miles and starts at the
Zoo and takes hikers on the Marquam trail which leads up into the highest point on Portland. The views were good as Summer has finally arrived meaning sun and clear skies,so we all got a group photo.
The hike wasn’t very steep and the trails were well marked and maintained. After we had completed 4 of the 4.5 miles we came to the Marquam Shelter adjacent to Oregon Health Science University. From this point you need to hike up a small hill to the OHSU campus where you take the Sky Tram to the Willamette River where you then catch the street trolley car. The problem was that not only was the hiking trial closed, so was the main access road to the top of the hill.
This was a little annoying since there were no signs anywhere along the trail indicating the closure. Our options were to hike back to the top and walk back towards the Zoo, traverse ourselves down to the river on unfamiliar side streets, or to make our own trail and scale up the hill to the campus. We opted for the later. In hindsight it probably wasn’t the best decisions but we
made it.
From the Tram we headed to the street car, then onto the light rail train which brought us back to the Zoo. It was a great afternoon on a relatively easy hike which I would recommend to anyone once construction is done at the OHSU campus.
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Kris
non-member comment
Wow!
Great pics! It looks amazing!