Lakes, Beaches, and Rainforests...
As Jen says… “No vacation is complete until someone gets sick or ends up in the emergency room!” Tuesday evening before we were scheduled to leave our camp at Elwha Dam, she started to feel a little bit of dizziness. Wednesday morning it was more significant so off we went to the emergency room at Olympic Medical Center. Numerous tests determined that it was vertigo of unknown etiology. A prescription was picked up at Walgreens, and we headed back to camp to get on the road. Thankfully the vertigo cleared up after several days.
With the later start to get on the road, we drove directly to Lake Quinault arriving at about 6pm. Shoopie, Hal, and Regina were scheduled to meet us here and spend some time with us. After we set up camp, we chose to go out to dinner at the Salmon House next door to our campground as it was getting late. Hal and Regina arrived at the Quinault Lodge and Shoopie joined us in camp later in the evening.
Thursday, Jen had to log into her class (first day of her master’s degree program!) and Shoopie also had to do some remote work. We decided to make it an easy day so we, along with Hal and Regina, enjoyed a local trail along the lake and then a short nature trail loop through the forest.
Friday was a long day, encompassing a beach and a rain forest. We started at Kalaloch Beach where we saw the Tree of Life. This Sitka spruce has had the soil under it erode leaving it spanning a crevice holding on by its roots on either side. Continued erosion has caused it to drop quite a bit, and it may come down completely very soon. The beach was very nice, albeit chilly with the overcast day. We found many treasures including shells, sand dollars, small dead Dungeness crabs, and the like.
Some of the treasures we found on the beach…
We then continued north to the Hoh Rainforest entrance to Olympic National Park. There we hiked along the Hoh River Trail for a few miles before turning back. This trail is a spectacular place to see the Olympic rain forest environment. So many mosses and ferns growing among and on the various trees. As it was late in the day and we still had a long drive back to camp, we decided to eat out again at the Salmon House. A long but very enjoyable day!
A short segment of the beautiful Hoh River Trail…
Our last full day at Lake Quinault was forecast to be rainy. As we have discovered though, the weather can be very unpredictable and change quickly and within a short distance. We decided to enjoy more of the rain forest and drove to the north side of the lake to walk along the Maple Glade Nature trail, a short, easy walk through the rain forest. After we finished that walk, Regina and Hal left us to head back home and we opted to do the longer Kestner Homestead Trail which provided more rainforest experience and passed through a historic homestead. We were able to enjoy all of that with no rain even though it rained on us both during the drive there and the drive back to camp.
Back at camp we started cleaning up and preparing for our departure. We also decided to visit the world’s biggest spruce tree which was right next to our campground. The size and mass of some of these trees are truly impressive.
Sunday it will be off to our next stop in Tillamook, Oregon…
