Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Olympic Peninsula Assorted Hikes 8/20-22

Ack! I'm a bit late on posting this re-cap, sorry about that!

As the title suggests I headed back to the Olympic Peninsula late last week accompanied by my dad for some hiking and camping. The plan was always changing, so that explains the lack of a earlier post outlining the hiking I would be doing. So with only a loose plan in place my dad and I headed for the Kingston ferry early Thursday morning. It was nice to have someone along to talk to on the long ride out to the coast for the first hike of the trip at Kalaloch. The weather was a bit foggy and windy when we got to the coast at about noon, and after a quick lunch in the parking lot of the day-use area at the Kalaloch campground, we started the first hike, which was an 8 mile round trip 'hike' (I feel guilty calling it a hike since it was entirely on the beach, but it is listed as a hike in my 'Day Hike Olympic Peninsula' book) south on the beach down to the South Beach Campground and back. We had a strong headwind to deal with heading down, but the sun came out and the wind diminished on the way back. Once back where we started my dad went to get some snacks at the Kalaloch store while I started the second hike of the day Kalaloch North, a 4.8 mile round trip trek on the beach up to Browns Point. Beach hiking I've decided has it's merits and drawbacks. The lack of elevation gain is one nice thing if your legs are tired from previous weeks of hiking, but on the other hand the scenery can get well...a bit boring. The ocean is wonderful and beautiful but after 12.8 miles of it, I was a bit tired of seeing it!

The hiking portion of the day done, we headed to the campsite we had claimed earlier up at the Hoh Rain forest Campground (advantage to arriving late morning on a Thursday is you pretty much can pick any spot you want!). Both my dad an I had been up very early that morning, so it was an early night with me in my tent by 6:30 or 7. After a less than restful night (I love camping, but have serious issues getting comfortable enough to sleep soundly) and a quick breakfast, we embarked on the next hike up to Happy Four Shelter on the Hoh Rain forest trail. Initially I had planned on going on up to the Olympus Guard Station (my dad was going to wait at Happy Four while I went up to the guard station), but my feet were sore/tired/in pain from the previous day's miles (and probably from the pounding I've put them through the past 6 months), so we both turned around at Happy Four making it a nice 11.6 mile round trip hike. I really liked this trail, you get to see the river, but you also get to see plenty of the forest and meadow areas as well. My dad and I spent the time on the trail pointing out really big trees, marveling at the huge blow-downs and speculating that the 'big spruce tree' advertised on the road to the campground might have some challengers lurking in the woods.

Initially the plan for Saturday was to do the Dungeness Spit hike on the way home. However, the thought of 10 miles of beach walking made me bored just thinking about it. Then the plan was to do the 8 mile Spruce Railroad Trail, but I really wanted to get more miles in. A flip through the hiking book, turned up 3.6 mile Third Beach. With the plan being to do Third Beach first and then stop at the Spruce Railroad, we packed up camp Saturday morning and headed off. Third Beach turned out to be a popular place! The parking area was nearly full, and as we found out later most of those cars belonged to campers on the beach. The walk through the woods was nice, a bit cool, but nice. My guide book talked about plank stairs leading down to the beach, but no such stairs exist. The short, less than one mile, beach walk portion of the hike was perfect. Just enough crashing waves and shore birds, but not too much. When we got to the end of Strawberry Bay we discovered dozens of orange and purple starfish along with turquoise sea anenomes clinging to the rocks. My dad took lots and lots of pictures of these (he was also snapping away at the crashing waves). As we headed back to the forest, my feet were starting to hurt and by the time we got back to the car, my feet were killing me making the possibility of any more miles that day an impossibility.

With the days hiking cut short we made our way back to Kingston and the ferry home. All in all a great trip. The weather was great, having the company of my dad was fantastic and even though the miles weren't as many as I had hoped for, the hiking was great (even the boring bits along the Kalaloch beaches). I'm down to about 15 more miles to go to meet my goal of 75...I guess this weekend will be a busy hiking one!

Total Miles for Trip: 28
Total Miles for Month: 60.44
Total Falls: 2 (miraculous this hasn't gone up yet!)

Ps. photos will be posted soon! My little old lap top has run out of space for any more pictures, so I need to shuffle things around a bit, then I'll be able to post photos from this trip)

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like a fantastic trip! Great for you :) I just have to tell you that I too have feet that always ache! There is one thing that I love to use that may help your feet too. I am a mom always looking for safe and natural things to use. I love the natural Topricin foot cream! It feels so good on sore feet and even helps with blisters and inflammation. I hope that this helps you! Take care and thanks for sharing your story :)

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