Peter Rowan and Sam Grisman Project at the Cabot

We're not going to as many concerts as we used to these days, we're perhaps more selective.  And one that immediately caught our eye was "Peter Rowan and the Sam Grisman Project doing Old and In the Way" at the Cabot.  I've really enjoyed the few Peter Rowan concerts I've been too, and this sounded like one that shouldn't be missed, especially when we were able to get seats in row K in the center of the orchestra at the Cabot, a great theater.

Ate a quick dinner at Gulu-Gulu in Salem on Saturday, June 14, a busy day with the No Kings demonstrations that morning.  Then drove up to a crowded downtown Beverly and were able to get the last parking spot in the municipal lot.  Got to our great seats a little before show time.  The crowd was late filling in but eventually the place was packed (except for the two seats right in front of us!) and the show started a little late.

Well, what we saw wasn't the recreation of Old and In the Way that we expected, but was fantastic.  Rowan shuffled on stage by himself first, an old man with a big (Panama?) hat and Hobbit pants, looking a little like a pumpkin.  He spoke/sang an introduction for the Sam Grisman project, and they came on and all opened with Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land, before Peter left the stage.  Sam told us that you never know what to expect from his introductions, sometimes he does a song, sometimes he recites a poem, sometimes he makes up a ditty on the spot.

Anyway, the Sam Grisman Project then did almost the whole first set by themselves and they were great.  They're led by Sam (David's son) on vocals and a double-bass that has a body that looks like it's been through a war but a beautiful neck, nut, and scroll that makes it look like a classical instrument.  They also had a fiddler, a guitarist, a mandolinist, and Victor Furtado (another legacy) on clawhammer banjo, and a dobro player came out for a few tunes.  I didn't try hard to remember the names, thinking that they'd be on the website.  But the only names on the website were not there on the night we saw them, I guess it's kind of a rotating cast.

Anyway, this band had some great strengths.  Sam Grisman is a fantastic, melodic, technical bass player and has a pretty good voice.  He has a unique style, hunching down and almost looking up at the bass while he plays, moving it around a lot, looking like he's doing a funky dance with it and just doing some incredible bass runs.  At one point the guy behind me couldn't help himself and said out loud, "Holy Cow!" when Sam did something on the bass we'd never seen done.  The rest of the band was very good too, though they weren't mixed particularly well.  They featured an excellent fiddle and guitar, and the mandolinist had a very good tone.

They played a set of neo-traditionalist bluegrass featuring songs like Going Up On the Mountain, and I'm Troubled.  Rowan came out for a few songs before the set break, doing some of his older stuff including The Free Mexican Air Force.  When we was with them the band stood back and filled in, while Sam almost duetted with Peter, who IMO is one of the best bluegrass guitarists ever.  He seemed very old and didn't bring his fastball, but he was consistently right around the plate and his change-up could not be touched.  Rowan strolled off-stage again and the band closed the first set with a smoking cover of Big Railroad Blues.

Surprisingly, very few Old and In the Way covers!  In the middle of the first set they did Vassar's Kissimmee Kid, on which the fiddler shone.  They later did Old and In the Way itself, which was written by David Grisman.

After a pretty short set break the band came back out and Peter joined them after a couple of numbers.  He'd shed the hat, letting his white hair fly, and seemed to now be taking this thing seriously.  They did a lovely cover of Carter Stanley's White Dove, with four/five part harmony.  And the song of the night was a haunting cover of The Walls of Time, written by Rowan with Bill Monroe.  His golden voice was at its best on this.

They did a few more numbers, including Midnight Moonlight, on which Peter invited the crowd to sing the chorus, and a great cover of Charlie Monroe's Rosa Lee McFall.  The last song of the set was another patriotic Guthrie number, All You Fascists, which Sam dedicated to Stephen Miller.  They came back out for an encore and Rowan mentioned the recent deaths of Sly Stone and Brian Wilson.  He finished the night with a spoken word and then sung cover of Wilson's late-in-life masterpiece, Love and Mercy.  By the end of the song he was leading the audience in a singalong, and then he closed it with one of his vocal flourishes.

Another great show at the Cabot, and a pretty quick journey home.

Amazing Washington - Back From the Forest

June 3

Got up before I wanted to and got organized.  I had time to shower, exercise, and eat a granola bar, then we got everything together and took off at a little after 6AM.  We had to leave some of our food there, no way to take it on the plane and no room in our bags.  They had told me at the car rental place to allow two hours between returning the car and our flight time.  And we figured during morning rush hour it might take two hours to get to the car rental place.  So we were on schedule.

Started off West on route 706 through beautiful downtown Ashford and then the town of Elbe, where they have a motel with rooms in old train cars.  Then right on route 7 past lovely Alder Lake, and right again on the Alder Cutoff Road, which turned into route 161 in Eatonville.  As we drove North we got glimpses of the bulk of Mt. Rainier off to the right.

We finished the last of the PB&J sandwiches as the trees began to thin and the buildings began to proliferate.  161 joined route 512 and by then we were already in suburbia and crawling in a dueling group of cars from one traffic light to the next.  In Puyallup, 512 became route 167, which is a limited access highway, and the traffic really started.  We jumped into the HOV lane but pretty soon they had dire signs that yes, it was an HOV lane, BUT you had to have the right transponder for it or they’d charge you $15 to use it!  So we crawled along with the rest.

After a while, Google maps started telling us that it would be faster to take local roads, and so we let it guide us left and right and left and right and left and right, etc. on city streets and twisty parkways through residential and factory and high tech neighborhoods through the suburbs South of Seattle.  It was another great day with no clouds and this tactic seemed to be working.  We weren’t stuck in a line of traffic at least.  And we ended up at the car rental area a little ahead of schedule.

No problem dropping off the car, they had the receipt for me in 30 seconds.  We put about 800 miles on her in six days, not that strenuous but a lot of up and down.  Goodbye to Muddy, who may not have an adventure like that again any time soon!  Got on the shuttle bus to the North terminal and we were back where we started, checking in our shared suitcase at an Alaskan Airlines kiosk.

Getting through security took forever though.  The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, or the North terminal at least, is not scaled to the number of people who go through there.  Even though it was 9AM on a Tuesday, they had to make lines that went back and forth and back and forth through almost the entire terminal.  The line we were in moved relatively quickly though, but when we finally got to the climax, they had to send me back twice to take off my belt and put it in my pack, and then to take off my boots (metal eyelets??) and put them through the scanner.  As Sarah said when I finally caught up in a state of undress, it’s a good thing they didn’t make me take off my pants.

Made it to the gate area and grabbed some of the last seats.  The whole area was just packed with people.  Luckily, they did the same thing they had on our flight West, and announced that people could check bags at the gate for free, since they were afraid the overheads would fill up.  Alaska Airlines 506 left the gate a little early actually, as the plane was full and there was no reason not to.

We had seats together again, right over the wing, this time on the port side of the plane.  As we taxied we caught a last glimpse of Mt. Rainier out the window, and caught our only glimpse of Mt. Olympus right after that.  And when we took off into the Northwest wind and then headed East, we ended up flying over Mt. Baker in North Cascades NP.  We’d ordered a chicken meal for this flight and it was not bad.  I dozed a bit and we again lucked out with the jet stream, getting in to Logan about an hour early.

Back on Eastern time and it was a nice day in Boston too.  Alaska Air got our bags out quickly, and we headed for the cab stand.  Not a bad ride back to Woburn and the kitties were ecstatic to see us, as we were to see them.

So how would I rate this vacation?  I’d have to put it very high on my list as far as seeing many things I’ll remember for a long time: the ocean, the mountains, the waterfalls, the sea stacks, the trees, the ancient forest ecosystem, the glaciers, the wildflowers, etc.  We mostly got where we wanted to when we wanted to, and/or had a Plan B, and our accommodations worked out well.  It’s too bad some of the places we wanted to hike were still snowbound, but if we’d gone later in the year the number of people we’d have to wade through would at least double.  We really should have made the vacation longer, but we knew we were going to miss the kitties.  In all I’d have to call it a short, amazing time!

 

Amazing Washington - Up Along the Ridge

 June 2

Not too many complaints from me about Frenchie’s Suite, though I’m a complainer.  Maybe they could have had freight train whistles in the middle of the night.

Anyway, got out of bed at some point in the morning and managed to get my exercises in on a cramped, wood floor, then we all got ready and walked down the few steps to the restaurant for breakfast … and they were glad to see us!  Got some nice eggs, toast, and coffee, and Sarah had a slice of their signature blackberry pie, which she didn’t find compelling unfortunately.

Anyway (again), we were well positioned and got right back to the Park as soon as we reasonably could.  The target this morning was the Rampart Ridge Trail, from the Longmire area.  I’d had my eye on this, but it looked to be a lot of vertical and perhaps too long a hike.  But the volunteer had recommended it to us for our "long" hike on Monday (this was Monday), and looking at the guidebook we realized it would be 1280 feet in elevation, whereas the Carter Falls Trail we’d just done was rated at 1200 feet, not a big difference.

The Longmire area is not that far into the Park, and has some historic buildings that we should have been interested in but just didn’t have the time for.  We had PB&J sandwiches, granola bars, plenty of water, first aid kit, rope, extra clothes, guidebooks, and some lint in our packs, and were ready for the trail.

Parked at the National Park Inn in the historic Longmire area, and found our way across the road to the Trail Of the Shadows, that we had to start off on.  Saw a couple of big trees and some swamp cabbage, but then got to the UPHILL turn off for the Ramparts Ridge Trail and followed it.  For the next few miles we were going up a steady, steep slope and navigating well-engineered switchbacks up to the ridge between the Nisqually valley and the valley of the Kautz Glacier to its West.

We started off at about the same time as a family group a bit (actually a lot) younger than us, leapfrogged them up the slope, taking rest breaks every so often, and they beat us to the top.  Several other groups also beat us to the top, including some who looked like they were NOT going to stop, and we may have beaten a few as well.  But whatever, it was a wonderful old-growth forest with majestic trees that let very little light find the forest floor, and so were not too bothered by the alder and maple bushes that sprang up where the sun actually shone.  The ferns were as ubiquitous as always, the wildflowers had found their niches, the fallen logs that hadn’t slid down the slope were nursing future growth, and we were taking our time.

We eventually made it to the top of the ridge after 90 minutes or so, but the viewpoint over the Longmire area was pitiful.  We could see our car though!  We’d been advised to keep going and we’d see a great vista of Mt. Rainier, which we did, and we were rewarded with a great view when we emerged on the other side of the ridge at the top of a scree slope.  Rainier was half-masked by clouds, and we kept on going, thinking that we’d have many other views as we hiked along the ridge right towards it.

But no!  We were soon enveloped by trees again for the next several miles and had no idea if we were on a mountain ridge, on a river bottom, or in a video game.  We passed small tree after small tree, and bush after bush, with a few interesting wildflowers and fungi to keep us busy.  But it was a flat walk along the top of Ramparts Ridge with no view out, and we eventually got a little downhill, and there was a large bog on our left.

Help!  We hadn’t ever needed the bug spray we got until that point, so much so that we’d left it behind on this hike.  And suddenly we needed it, these bugs hadn’t been fed in years apparently.  But we zipped up our jackets and hoods, hurried by, and soon got to the junction with the ubiquitous Wonderland Trail and started downhill, getting out of range of those bugs as fast as we could.

We were ready for lunch at this point, but there was nowhere good to stop where we could all sit down … and a view (and a breeze) would have been nice.  But a mile or so down the Wonderland Trail we happened upon a step they’d built into the Trail which we could all three sit down on, and we thankfully settled down for a PB&J lunch.  Trail ambassador Terry came by while we were in the middle of lunch and was glad to see us (he said he hadn't seen anybody all day) and talk for a bit.  But he then hurried on and we finished in our own time.

Great break, but now for more serious downhill.  We could see the trees changing as we descended.  When we saw alders and red cedar mixing in with the Douglas fir then we knew we’d descended into another climate zone, and when we saw a few maples we knew we were almost back to Longmire.  We hadn’t realized how fast we were descending until we had to cross the Park road, and then dropped even further into the Longmire area, ending up right across from where we’d started at the National Park Inn.

That was a great hike, over 5 miles and a lot of vertical, but not as much view as we’d like.  Oh well.  We cooled down, drank some water, and realized there was still a lot of time left in the afternoon.  Another hike that had been recommended to us was the Twin Firs Trail, down the hillside, and so we drove down there and had a very mellow half hour following that loop trail.

This was our gentle farewell to big trees.  Some incredible specimens of Douglas fir and red cedar can be found on this trail, some growing together almost from a single root, but most standing alone and swelling with their accumulated years.  These guys are a thousand years old, give or take a bit, and were there just for us to clamber up the slope and look at them.  Don’t fall over backwards when you look up!

Drove even further down the mountain after that and another thing the volunteer had recommended in his ramblings was to drive up the Westside Road until it was maybe closed and then look around.  So that’s what we did, and it wasn’t much.  But it was a quiet, private farewell to the Park, there was some kind of view at the top, and it certainly was … well, a road up a mountainside.

Ok, time to say goodbye to Mt. Rainier NP and to head back to Frenchie’s.  We’d made a dinner reservation there for 6:00 that Monday night, realizing that we needed to get to bed early and wake up early to get back to the airport.  Left the Nisqually entrance and sped the few miles to Copper Creek.  And we got there in time to do most of the needed packing before dinner.

We then went down to dinner and it was mobbed again … on a Monday at 6:00!  Good thing we’d made a reservation.  Our waitress told us that this was nothing, wait until Summer when they’d have a line out the door and people begging for a seat.  Got another fine dinner that couldn’t be beat and then headed back upstairs, where we did some final packing and then settled down for a last game of Azul.

Soon to bed.  The raucous restaurant underneath us was quieting down, and we were ready for our 5:00AM alarm.

Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:

• Pacific Waterleaf
• Candy Flower
• Hawkweed
• Carpet Bugle
• Horsetail
• Vine Maple
• Beargrass
• Pinemat Manzanita
• Pink Mountainheath
• Arctic Lupine
• Pipecleaner Moss
• Oregon Boxwood
• Swamp Currant
• Pacific Trillium
• Spotted Coralroot
• Rosy Pussytoes
• Large-leaved Avens
• Columbian Windflower
• Hooker's Fairybells
• Tall Bluebell

Amazing Washington - Mt. Rainier and Snow

 June 1

Breakfast was in the hotel, and Sarah went down early as she usually does while Dave and I were still sleeping (or attempting to).  The baseball tournament contingent had invaded the breakfast room and one obnoxious coach was doing his best to equal the kids’ level of misbehavior, according to her.  Luckily they were pretty much all gone by the time Dave and I went down for the normal buffet breakfast of eggs, sausages, and sweet pastries.

Well anyway, we had no problem leaving Chehalis behind, probably caught it at a bad time.  Drove South on Interstate 5 for a few exits and then turned East on route 12, and it didn’t take long before the beauty started.  It was a lovely, cloudless day and the temperature was just right.  We drove through miles and miles of farmland and feed stores, gradually going higher and higher, still on the long tail end of the parabola, but with hills and then mountains ahead of us.  We passed a few big lakes and soon the ridges of the Cascade foothills were enveloping us, and we were climbing from valley to valley.

After 90 minutes or so we cruised through the town of Packwood, and it was just right, exactly halfway between mountain getaway for wealthier people, farm/feed/tavern/grocery source for the locals, and distant suburb of the bigger cities.  You could telecommute from there and it was close enough to Seattle to commute in once or twice a week.  And it was beautiful!  A meme of ours all through the vacation was that we’d be moving out there soon and we were just looking for where.  I think I’d really enjoy living in Washington, though of course I’m bound to New England.

Soon after Packwood, as the road started to get vertical and signs announced the snowpack level in upcoming passes and there were pullovers to put on your tire chains, we exited North on route 123 and soon were entering Mt. Rainier NP.  I’d been watching their website, hoping that the Southeast entrance would not open late this year, and luckily it was opened on May 23.  However, the Ohanapecosh Campground at that entrance was closed for reconstruction, as was the nearby VC, and I had no idea if we could access the trailhead for the Silver Falls Trail, which sounded just right for us but started in the campground.

So we were very disappointed when the main entrance to the campground and VC was closed at the road … they even prohibited hikers from walking in.  But we kept on North for about another half mile and there was a small parking lot on the left with a few cars in it, so we pulled in.  We checked with a guy who was just heading down the social trail there and he confirmed that yes, this would quickly lead to the Hot Springs Trail, and we could follow that to the Silver Falls Trail.

We were psyched, loaded up with all our hiking stuff, and headed off.  The way to the campground on the Hot Springs Trail was blocked by a signboard but it said that we could go the other way to Silver Falls, we just couldn’t then loop back through the campground to return, we’d have to retrace our steps.  It made me wonder what on earth they were doing in that campground that made them so anxious to not let anyone near it?

So we went North on the trail and it was wonderful.  Tall trees paraded all around us, mostly Douglas fir, western hemlock, and red cedar.  We soon were in a hot springs area, and signs warned us not to leave the trail.  We didn’t see any steam, as we had with other geothermal springs, but at one point a small brook ran across the trail into a pool, with telltale hot water/mineral colors.  We put our hands in the brook, and it was very hot!

The Hot Springs Trail intersected with the Silver Falls Trail, running along up a steep hill from the Ohanapecosh River, across a few other streams running steeply downhill to the river, and eventually past the intersection with the Laughingwater Creek Trail, which leads up to the Pacific Crest Trail.  There were just a few other people on the trail, and in all it was a couple of beautiful miles to the Falls.  It looked and smelled like a dense evergreen forest, and Douglas squirrels and birds kept popping out at us between the tall trees.

And when we got to the Falls, wow, what a sight!  It was a multi-level, twisting cascade between amazing trees and rocks.  A cove that must be a back-eddy of the Falls when the level is higher contained some huge logs and added to the message that the old forces of water, gravity, upheaval, and photosynthesis were at play here and we could stand back and watch, if we were lucky and respectful.

Turned around eventually and it was another couple of miles back to the car.  Once again, our first exposure to a National Park had been lovely and mellow, and got us primed for the wonders that were to come.  We drove up to the Stevens Canyon Entrance and would have loved to go up to the Grove Of the Patriarchs Trail, but it was closed because of a bridge being washed out in 2021.  Again, please fund the Parks better!

We’d seen on the map that the road would be going through some severe switching back for the next 20 miles or so to the Paradise area, and we sure were going steeply uphill, first along the valley of the Ohanapecosh, then crossing a ridge and switching back up along the Cowlitz River.  We were headed for a short hike at Box Canyon, and it’s a stop not to be missed.

Pulled over in the small parking lot there and crossed the road to the trailhead, which took us steeply uphill, past a lovely meadow with small wildflowers of all colors of the rainbow.  The Wonderland Trail that circles all through the Park branched off to the right, but we turned left, down to a bridge over the Cowlitz, and a steep, steep, amazingly narrow canyon.  It’s 180 feet down to the raging river from the bridge, and you’re high enough to get vertigo.  I had to step back after a few minutes!

Back to the parking lot after a half-mile loop, then we drove a little farther to the Box Canyon picnic area, where we found a secluded picnic table and had an excellent PB&J lunch.  Next stop after that was going to be the Snow Lake Trail or the High Lakes Trail at the Reflection Lakes.  But there was a problem…

I haven’t mentioned the awesome presence of Mt. Rainier, a monadnock (debatably, technically it's a stratovolcano so it's not, though it is highly topographically distinct) and so one of the biggest single things you’ll ever see.  We could see it from the Seattle airport, and as we cruised up route 12 that morning we’d seen it to our left, looming behind and then dominating the lower hills and ridges around it.  We were driving up the steep Stevens Canyon Road after lunch and all at once around a corner, there it was up close, filling the whole windshield with a vision of craggy rock, snow, and off-white glaciers.  We were lucky that from this angle we were able to see the whole thing without clouds masking any of it.  We would have stopped to take pictures, but we didn’t know that we’d rarely get a cloud-free sight of it again.

And just about at that point, we started noticing snow along the sides of the road.  Stevens Canyon had been open since May 23, as I say.  But we realized as we climbed higher and higher that this was only because they’d plowed the road.  By the time we got up to the Lakes Trail, there was no chance that we could hike it, it still had 3-5 feet of heavy snow on it.  Sure, the snow was melting fast, but it would be at least another few weeks before the upper trails would be navigable by hikers like us.

So we shrugged and continued up to the Reflection Lakes, where there was even more snow!  The ice was not even out on the lake, we could just see small areas where it had melted.  We parked, along with a huge number of people who were taking selfies and having snowball fights.  We hiked up to either end of the lengthy parking lot to try to find the trailheads we were looking for, but they weren’t even visible, the snow was so deep.  No chance of getting in a hike there.

Oh well, back in the car and we continued up and up to the Henry M. Jackson VC in the Paradise area of the Park.  The different areas are basically river valleys formed by glaciers up on the mountain.  We’d been in the valleys formed by the rivers running downhill from the Ohanapecosh and Cowlitz glaciers that morning, and now were in Paradise Park, with the Paradise Glacier hanging above us.

The parking lot was mobbed, but we lucked into a good space and toured the VC.  We talked to a volunteer, who really enjoyed talking to us and wanted to keep on talking all day apparently.  But somewhere in there he gave me some good advice about where to hike.  Well, some advice at least.  I told him we wanted a short, snow-free hike for that afternoon and then would be spending the night in Ashford and looking for a longer (but snow-free) hike for tomorrow.  It wasn’t the most satisfactory conversation, but I came away with some ideas about what we should do.

Then we checked out the mobbed store, but didn’t get anything, none of the hats were up to my standard, unfortunately.  They ran a snowshoe rental and had a bin overflowing with wet, returned ones.  We three huddled in the lee of one of their exhibits, looked at the map the volunteer had marked up, and decided to go for the Carter Falls Trail that afternoon.  Outside, the parking lot was as busy as ever; many people had brought or rented skis/snowboards and were walking up the trails from the VC and then skiing down, threatening to wipe out other tourists who were flailing in the snow.  To the South we had a wonderful view of the Tatoosh Range of mountains.

From the VC we drove steeply downhill towards the Cougar Rock Campground, now in the valley formed by the Nisqually Glacier.  We pulled over for a short stop to see Narada Falls, which are spectacular, but we didn’t hike down to the viewpoint.  The volunteer had given us a good tip and directed us to park in the picnic area at Cougar Rock, which was almost deserted and pretty close to the trailhead.  We got our packs out, but we hadn’t realized what a long and steep hike it would be to Carter Falls!  We loved it anyway.

From the campground area you clamber downhill into the Nisqualley River valley, which every once in a while gets filled with water from the glacier, but most of the year is a huge gulley of rocks.  There was kind of a path between the rocks over to the lower side of the valley, and the trail wound that way in the hot sun with a cool breeze coming down from the mountain.  Over on the far side of the river valley is the rushing, tumultuous river itself, when it doesn’t spill its banks, and a log bridge over it.  We realized we’d have to walk over that log bridge.

It was a little hairy, especially because it was a logjam (no pun intended) in both directions, with hikers hesitating and getting up their courage to cross the bridge.  When it was our turn we didn’t chicken out, but you might want not to look down at the water, which is hard to do when you’re trying to keep your feet in the center of the bridge and stretch out to hold onto the flimsy guardrail.  On the other side we clambered up out of the gulley formed by the river and soon were on a beautiful trail uphill into the woods.

The trail crossed over a ridge to parallel the Paradise River, which joins the Nisqually just below the bridge.  It started off kind of level, then got steeper and steeper and steeper.  There were a number of people on the trail, but also an assortment of beautiful trees and great views of the river valley and the end of the Tatoosh Range.  As I say, we hadn’t realized how long of a hike it would be, or the elevation change.  It was almost as much as the “longer” hike we’d left for the next day!  But we kept on and had a great time.

I can’t overemphasize the magnitude of the forest infrastructure these trees had made through thousands of years.  Every inch of space, even in mature forests with little understory vegetation, was being used.  There wasn’t just thick humus, there were multiple layers of nurse trees, nurse stumps, and thick, tangled roots that supported the giant trees.  On the Carter Falls hike the riverbank had been eroded away in places and we got to see awesome cross-sections of the forest floor, trees growing on the last generation, piled on top of generations before that, and roots extending down through it all to layers beneath our feet.  It was like the catacombs of some ancient city.

Finally got to the Carter Falls after hearing them for a long time.  Not as spectacular as the other ones we’d seen, especially since you really can’t get a good view of them with all the trees.  Took a break, then turned around and headed back downhill, much easier this way.  This was all part of the Wonderland Trail, which as I say, circumnavigates the Park.  If we had kept following it uphill we would have soon been in the snow.

Several groups of people heading up the trail stopped us on the way down and desperately wanted to know how far they had to go.  I told one group that they were halfway there, but didn’t tell them how much uphill it was going to be.  Got down to the bridge and it was somehow even more hairy crossing back over it.  But we were exhilarated that we’d been on such an adventurous and challenging hike.  Finally made it out of the river valley and had to climb up the road just a short way to get back to the car, and a pump where we refilled all our water bottles.

Ok, we were toast and ready to head to the rooms we’d reserved in Ashford.  We drove down and down and down some more, in the Nisqually River valley.  In retrospect I have to give Muddy better grades, she sure wasn’t prepped for this when they rolled her out in the Seattle airport, ready for city traffic.  Out through the Nisqualley Entrance and the dodgy/expensive hotels and resorts started up within a few yards of it.

We’d lucked into a pied-à-terre in the Copper Creek Inn, just a couple of miles outside the Park.  They’ve got lots of cabins, rooms in the lodge, etc.  But what worked for us and what I jumped on when I looked at their place back in December was Frenchie’s Suite, upstairs from their restaurant.  The inn has existed as a family enterprise for generations, through several families.  Frenchie was an eccentric uncle a few generations ago who lived upstairs, apparently, and the three-room suite he stayed in (with a bathroom down the hall) was just our kind of funky, was a fine price, enabled us to return to the Park with no traffic, and was right over the restaurant.

Might be noisy though, and what about security??  We pulled into the Copper Creek Inn’s employee’s driveway as directed and said, no that couldn’t be it, then turned around and around and went way up the driveway and eventually it all clicked.  This was the place we’d reserved and was the place we wanted, very different from the Holiday Inn in Chehalis.  We grabbed our travel-worn bags and empty bottles, walked down the gritty pathway onto the timbered porch, punched the code we’d been given, and found exactly what we were looking for.  Frenchie’s Suite had a great table in the living room, two small bedrooms, a bathroom down the hall, a fridge and microwave, and an eclectic selection of DVDs we didn’t need, fortunately.

Here's a picture of Frenchie, cook at the Inn for 50 years, with a nephew.

Oh boy, what a relief!  BUT … we were worried about getting seats in the restaurant on a Sunday night and so hurried downstairs as soon as we got settled.  It was mobbed.  We were told at first that we’d have to put our name in, wait 30-45 minutes, and then jump to it when they called us.  But we talked to the manager and told him that we were in Frenchie’s Suite, could they just text us or something when it was our turn?  He was great and put us down for a reservation in a half hour and told us to just come back then, we’d be fine.

Which we did, and we had a great dinner at the Copper Creek Inn.  They had a fine beer selection (cans only), and a local, dry but not-too-dry cider that Sarah loved (Mill Haus Cider from Eatonville WA).  We were pretty exhausted by then and did not finish our dinners, but our server Luke was perfectly timed to our imperfect rhythms, and we all really enjoyed the amateur art and artifacts they had on display.  In all, we really liked this place on a mellow June 1st Sunday.

Ok, back upstairs, a game of Azul, and soon to bed!

Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:

• Star-flowered Lily-of-the-Valley
• Deer's-Foot/Vanilla Leaf
• Bride's Bonnet
• Western Starflower
• Salal
• Western Bunchberry
• Cascade Oregon-Grape/Dull Oregon-Grape
• Sitka Valerian
• Western Sword Fern
• Stream Violet
• Pacific Trillium
• Salmonberry
• Cliff Beardtongue
• Saskatoon
• Subalpine Monkeyflower
• Russethair Saxifrage
• Cascade Calicoflower
• Pipsissewa
• Pacific Coralroot

Amazing Washington - Rain Then More Beach

 May 31

Woke up after another so-so night of sleep and dozing, and did my exercises out on the splintery wood deck in front of our room.  Flocks of birds flew low overhead in the early morning, overcast sky.  I took a short trip over to the grocery to get bread after getting dressed, and the rain started as I returned.  Oh well, the rhododendron bushes looked fabulous in the gray morning!

We’d scoped out a breakfast place, the Quinault Internet Café in Amanda Park, and we arrived at the dining room entrance just as the waitress was unlocking the door, and just as the rain settled in like it wasn’t going to stop.  Funny that when we looked over to the lounge part of the Café, there was already a group of people huddled over their laptops.  Had they been there all night??

Had a fine breakfast and some good coffee while we mulled over what to do that day.  We needed to end up in Chehalis that night and wanted to see some of the Lake Quinault area and hit a few places on the more Southern coast, but we weren’t sure how long the rain would last.  So we decided to put off the longer hike we’d planned, the Irely Lake trail way down the North Shore Road, and instead start with a shorter hike from the Ranger Station.

Back the couple of miles North to the cheap hotel and loaded out, the Lake Quinault Inn was fine but old and worn.  The air conditioning there (and the heat probably) were not working and there was a fan and an electric radiator in the room for us.  The fan and an open window had worked fine, the hotel is clean and in a very quiet spot.

Turned right up the North Shore Road and after a few miles on the pavement we turned left into the Quinault Rain Forest Ranger Station parking lot.  Don’t think the station itself was open, but there were a few cars already in their small lot.  The rain was persistent, but we put on our raincoats, put our hoods up, and started off on the Maple Glade Loop Trail.

This was more of what we’d seen at Hoh, but was a delightful, more private version.  Huge maples covered with moss and ferns, rivulets of running water with bogs of giant skunk cabbage and horsetail, devil’s walking stick, wildflowers, and a few western hemlocks, red cedars, and Sitka spruces.  We opted not to take the longer trail to the Kestner Homestead, and soon were back at the car.  It was raining as hard as ever and didn’t want to stop.

We decided to keep up the Road towards Irely Lake and maybe it would stop raining by the time we got there, or else we could circle over a rumored bridge up in that direction and come back by the South Shore Road, which had an assortment of shorter rain forest hikes.  A few hundred yards past the Ranger Station the pavement ended and the road started off fine, but soon began featuring arrays of deep potholes that were hard to avoid.  Muddy did a great job of dealing with them, but many contortions were required.  Some of them were shallow and already filled with water, but when you saw a dry one you knew it went down to the center of the earth and you wanted to avoid those.

The road went on for miles and miles, and there were very few other cars on that road, we might have passed two or three coming the other direction.  It sounds miserable, but we were thoroughly enjoying the wet day and the dripping forest (it *was* a rain forest after all).  And then we came around a corner and there was a herd of Roosevelt elk in the meadow to our right, one bull surrounded by a dozen cows, all grazing.  The herds are matriarchal, led by an older cow, and after a while she apparently gave the signal and they all trotted off into the woods.

We finally got to the promised junction where you can continue left up to Irely Lake and the North Fork campground, or turn right over a dodgy looking bridge to cross the Quinault River.  It was still raining as hard as ever, so we went over the bridge and turned right again to return on the South Shore Road … but it was closed!  So much for our plans.  The only thing to do was to go back over the bridge and brave the sea of potholes all the way back the way we’d come.

Even this did not dampen our spirits, and navigating the potholes was a good game.  Muddy sure earned her name.  We got back to the start of the pavement and past the Ranger Station, and stopped at the July Creek Loop Trail on the shore of Lake Quinault before we got back to Amanda Park.  Still raining, but this was a deserted and very nice area with a nice creek tumbling down to the lake and some just humongous Sitka spruces and a few hemlock, hugging secluded coves on the lakeshore.

Ok, it was time to bid a sad farewell to Olympic NP, which we loved.  Was it our favorite National Park?  No way we could answer that question at that point.  We needed perspective and were about to see another that promised to be fabulous.  But it was definitely way up there on the list.

Turned back onto 101 South through miles of forest and some small towns.  The rain finally let up and the cloud cover began to thin as we approached the big town of Hoquiam, then crossed the Chehalis River at Aberdeen, all following route 101.  We finally left it behind when we crossed the river, turning right onto 105 West towards the coast.  We hugged the South side of Grays Harbor, the large, tidal inland delta formed by the Chehalis River and continued out towards the barrier islands that formed the harbor, turning right on 105 up the cape into Westport, a few blocks before we would have hit the beach.

Westport is a precious little seaside town with a huge State Park, a busy waterfront just sheltered from the Pacific, some big RV campgrounds, and some boutique hotels, mixed with lots of cheap ones.  We were looking for a place to eat lunch and then maybe climb their observation tower, and we found a great waterfront dive bar called the Knotty Pine Tavern where the beer was cold, the fries were real, and the hamburgers were really good.  Service was spotty but friendly, there was one nice woman working the tables and also tending bar for a row of regulars who looked like they’d been super-glued to their barstools.  They had what looked like a great shuffleboard game (we didn’t try it), and a unique approach to bathroom maintenance.  The one huge urinal in the men’s room was filled with ice, it was a truly chilling experience.

Left there after a long lunch, and it was now mostly clear out with some high clouds.  We decided to head right for the not-as-big State Park a bit outside of town rather than the big one in town.  We got back on 105 for several miles South along the barrier island, and then turned right towards the promised Seashore Conservation Area State Park.  But where did the world end and the Park start?  The small lane of beachside bungalows we were on kind of petered out, and we crossed some pavement covered by blowing sand, which eventually ended as we got closer and closer to the water, following some kind of road, that became covered with small ripples of sand itself.  At some point I stopped and we got out, and we were on another planet.

Wow, how to describe this?  We could turn away from the water and look a few hundred yards back to our world, where the houses ended and the sand began.  But the other 270 degrees showed an alien environment right out of a scifi book.  There were four elements in this world.  One was the flat, flat, hard firmament we were standing on that stretched forever to the North and the South.  One was the gray and white liquid/foam, that kept reaching towards us in billows that would flatten out on the firmament and run for yards and yards way up to our feet before somehow shrinking and receding.  Another was the blue and white ceiling above us, that featured a huge, blazing yellow sphere that was sending waves of heat down on our heads.  But the strongest element was this invisible force pushing down from the North, almost knocking us over and actually eating away at the firmament we were standing on, sending it scuttering in a river down to the South.  This world seemed permanent, but we realized it was disappearing at the same time.

Yeah yeah, I’ve been on beaches before and this was just another beach.  But it was totally deserted except for us, the wind was just incredibly strong, and the beach was so flat that when a wave came in, its momentum made it stretch out thinner and thinner for a long, long time before sinking into the sand.  We could not face North without shielding our faces because the blowing sand was so abrasive.  We soaked it all in for a while, it was thrilling in some ways, but a little scary in others.  How fast was the tide coming in?  Were we in danger of getting blown away by the wind or burnt by the sun?  Why was there no one else there (one woman did show up, walking her dog, but they seemed distressed themselves)?  And most of all, would the car get stuck in the sand?

After a while though, we’d had enough and it was time to go.  The car turned around with no problem and we slowly rolled the few hundred yards back to the sand dunes bordering the beach and the small line of bungalows.  That was fun!  But now it was time to get serious and start heading inland.

I needed a cup of coffee and we knew that Muddy might need gas for the next section of our trip, so we stopped in Tokeland and a gas station/store right across from the Shoalwater Bay Casino.  We were just barely in the tiny Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation, and they had built a huge casino and were selling fireworks.

Continued East on 105, and then for a couple of hours on State route 6 through trackless forest, going slowly up and up as we got further inland.  I should mention that whenever we were on non-NP land, you might be driving through a forest and suddenly see a whole logged hillside, bare and desolate for now, probably soon to grow back though and be logged again.  Farms and factories started up and we finally found ourselves crossing over Interstate 5 into Chehalis (“sheh-HAY-liss”).  We were back in civilization, or at least in a chain hotel, as we pulled into the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Chehalis-Centralia, which was in the running for the longest hotel name in Washington State.

Seemed nice and we got a really nice room, but a warning sign told us that if the trains bothered us, we could get a “silencing kit” from the front desk with earphones and drugs.  We soon discovered that yes, they did have a good number of trains coming through town.  They had two busy lines (at least) that went through a level crossing a few blocks away and were obliged to blow their horns, which they did loudly and gleefully all night.  Actually, when we closed the window and the thick blackout shade, the sounds were ok and did not wake us up.

It was getting late already, so we got unpacked and then walked the few blocks over to the restaurant we’d targeted, Jeremy’s Farm To Table.  Well, that sounded like a great choice, but none of us liked that restaurant.  It was in a large barn-type building but was poorly ventilated (there was some smoke in the dining area from the kitchen), it was overrun by poorly-behaved kids and overtaxed chaperones who were in town for a baseball tournament, the service was way slow, and the food was not that good.  I had a dinner salad and there wasn’t much about it to make you think that it had come from a farm recently.  Oh well, the beer was cold.

Marched back to the hotel and were able to get in a good game of Here To Slay on their small table.  One fun thing they had had in the restaurant was a screen showing a webcam focused on the busy railroad tracks in town.  Dave watched it for a while back in the hotel, and confirmed that it was live.  Soon to bed after that after a long and crazy day!

Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:

• Western Skunk Cabbage
• Horsetail
• Threeleaf Foamflower
• Candy Flower
• Purple Foxglove
• Deer Fern
• Large-leaved Avens
• Small-leaved Blinks
• Pacific Ninebark
• European Searocket
• Salsify

Amazing Washington - Rain Forest and Beach

 May 30

Got up on Friday and it was a glorious morning, time to go see more amazing stuff!  I didn’t have one good night’s sleep all vacation, but that wasn’t about to stop me.  We wanted to get on the road quickly that morning, but figured that instead of packing up and then finding a breakfast spot, we should just go to Jazzy Joshua’s again.  Lynne was delighted to see us and hear about our hikes, and the omelets were as huge and the coffee as hot as yesterday.

We were tempted to stop at Madison Falls again, but kept the hammer down and hit the two lakes, where we stopped at the Ranger Station to top up our water.  Continued around 101, the Olympic Highway, towards Beaver where we turned South through the town of Forks (where the Twilight vampire stories were set).  About a half hour after that we turned East on the Upper Hoh Road, along the Hoh River towards the real rain forest.

In the North of the Park we’d experienced some of the temperate rain forest in the Elwha and Sol Duc river basins.  But we hadn’t been far from the rain shadow, the area on the lee side of the mountains where the huge dumps of moisture coming from the Pacific have already been mostly spent.  The West side of the Park experiences much more precipitation, and the trees are even bigger.  We were ready!

But, as we traveled down the Hoh Road, we saw ominous signs from the NPS.  Several warned us that we might have a two-hour wait to get into the rain forest area and we should turn around now if we valued our lives.  Well, we weren’t about to have come all that way just to turn around, and so we continued up the river.  As we did we realized the signs were probably correct at some times of the year, but probably not right now in late May.  The warnings went down from two hours to 90 minutes, 60 minutes, and 30 minutes as we steamed along, and before we knew it we were at the entrance station, and hadn’t hit a backup.

Showed them our pass and cruised into the parking lot, which *was* already pretty full.  We got a spot and hit some vault toilets, but then were all turned around and it took some wandering through the densely overgrown campground area before we could find the tiny, shopworn, and crowded Hoh Rain Forest VC.  But that was fine and there was still plenty of time left in the morning.

There are two smaller trails at Hoh, and a trailhead for the long hike up the upper section of the Hoh River to Blue Glacier on Mt. Olympus.  I should say that we never saw the namesake mountain of the Park the whole time we were in it, which was a small disappointment.  There’s a small path behind the VC which then splits for the two shorter trails.  We turned uphill for the Hall of Mosses Loop Trail.

It was here we first really experienced the quick little Douglas squirrel, which were everywhere.  These look a lot like the red squirrels we get in Maine, but are slightly smaller and have faces and movements more like a rat.  Not really cute, but definitely amusing small animals.  We also saw lots of birds in the rain forest area, including a robin (named Robby) who hopped along in front of us on one trail, guiding us safely along.

The Hall of Mosses Trail was spectacular.  We thought we’d seen big trees before, but these were even huger, and the oldest were more than 1000 years old.  There were only a few Douglas firs, most were Sitka spruce, which grow amazingly tall, and there were also some western hemlocks and lots of giant red cedars.  But the reason for the name of the trail was the dense grove of bigleaf maples … we thought we’d seen them covered with moss before but these guys were just dripping with pounds and pounds of moss, licorice ferns, and other epiphytes.  There were huge nurse logs that had been feeding the next generation for hundreds of years, and spectacular displays of sword ferns.

Unfortunately, that trail was also filled with hordes of clueless tourists without proper footwear, and many of these were not looking at the trees, they were gabbing loudly about what their cousin said last year, or what kinds of birdfeeders their grandfathers kept.  We were trying to enjoy the trees but this was getting a little oppressive.

Luckily, most of them had turned back or been left behind by the time we got to the next small loop, the Spruce Nature Trail.  This was at a much lower elevation and actually followed the course of the Hoh river for a bit.  And they had the biggest Sitka spruces here, some of them were just unreal, they were so big and so tall.  You’d be walking along and see a massive tree trunk in front of you, tilt your head up and up to look at it, but not see anything but more and more trunk.  You had to actually stop, take your hat off, put your hands on your hips, and tip way back to see even the underside of the massive crown.

At one blessedly silent point of the trail, we came upon a woman who put her finger to her lips and pointed to a solitary cow elk we hadn’t noticed but was standing right near us in the swamp, eating leaves and having a fine time.  Of course, as we left quietly we heard the crowd bumble around the curve of the trail behind us and one of them shouted, “LOOK, AN ELK!!!!”  At least they knew what it was.

And yes, this was mostly a swampy area with some real swamp plants, most of which were new to us but some of which were absolutely gigantic skunk cabbages, also many specimens of a plant somewhere between a fern and a bottle-brush, the horsetail.

Finished both of the short trails, and then set up our food at a secluded picnic table in the overgrown area we’d first seen, for a fine PB&J lunch.  By the time we left, the parking lot was full and they were actually holding up a line of cars at the entry station, letting them in one by one as cars left one by one.

Next, we were headed for the shore.  One of the things we found amazing about Olympic NP was that it has such a variety of impressive scenery, and the beach is one of the best.  We wanted to check out the more Northern beaches in the Park, but this would have taken up almost a full day.  So we went for the more on-our-path Ruby Beach, which was a fine alternative.

We got back onto 101 off the Upper Hoh Road and headed Southwest, across flat miles of more big trees.  Suddenly we were at the edge of the continent, and parked in a half-full lot at Ruby Beach, back in the National Park.  We only had to go a short way down the slanting path before we just had to stop and gape at what we were seeing.  I’d seen pictures of sea stacks, but never had seen one up close, and there they were, extending from the end of the path to the North.

The flora on the shore was dominated by huge bushes of cow parsnip, which were so big they probably had to be cut back regularly so the path wouldn’t be unpassable.  We also saw some delightful towers of foxglove flowers.  We dropped down 100 feet or so to the beach, and it was littered with giant logs washed up by the tide.  We had to clamber over them to get to the beach, they were totally obstructing it.  I walked right up to a sea stack and said hi.  The first picture on this page was taken at Ruby Beach and shows exactly what we saw when we first arrived at the beach, though it was a beautiful, sunny day and not foggy.

Though sunny, there was a strong Northwest wind, the surf was crashing on the shore, and the tide was coming in fast.  One of the attractions of the Washington shore is tide pools, but we’d timed it wrong and the tide was too high to see those.  Before it came in any further, Dave and I hurried right up the beach immediately to see the massive sea stack of Abbey Island just before the tide came in around it.  The surface of the beach was a bad-for-traction mix of round stones and coarse black sand, but we made it up there with some exertion, crossing a tidal inlet on a handy log.

The stacks here were a mix of conglomerate and sedimentary rock, they were just amazing.  The violence of the ocean is not often shown so vividly as in these stacks, which were eroded from the banks on the shore (“a process of coastal geomorphology”), and you can almost feel this process continuing.  Abbey Island is an incredibly high one, with its own forest up 180 feet of vertical walls above the beach.  Dave and I got right up to it, but then turned around quickly and trudged back before we were isolated by the tide.  We saw a seal seemingly playing in the high surf, though it was probably hunting, and I saw a fin of some kind (a dolphin?) in the waves.

We found a slightly easier path back to the ramp to the shore over the giant logs on the beach, and made it back up to the parking lot, where we rejoined Sarah.  Route 101 took us for many more miles down alongside the beach, and we stopped at several overlooks before it swung back Southeast after we crossed the Queets River.

OK, it was getting late in the afternoon and our timing was great for driving the 90 minutes or so to Amanda Park and the Lake Quinault Inn on the North Shore Road at Lake Quinault.  We needed more beer, and the Northshore Grocery (one of those stores that has everything or you don’t need it) was just 20 yards from the hotel and had exactly what we needed.  We checked into our old but totally acceptable room (fine big beds and impressive wood furniture) next to a luxurious rhododendron bush in that small, asymmetric, and worn hotel.  Our neighbors had tattoos and a cute dachshund.  There was no table, but we cleverly set up the suitcase on a stand between the beds so we could wind down with a game of Azul.

We’d scouted where to eat dinner and hurried down to the Salmon House Restaurant in the small village of Quinault itself, because we weren’t sure when they were going to close.  We were pretty much the only ones in the dining room, though there were a lot of people in the lounge when we got there, and there were even more when we left.  This was in a lovely spot on the relatively ritzy South Shore Road, with the lowering sun shining in the windows over the lake and sailboats drawn up on the expansive lawn.  Believe it or not, the menu offered mainly salmon, and Sarah got the dill salmon, I got the blackened salmon, and Dave got the baked salmon.  They were all delicious.

We somehow found out that the “World’s Largest Sitka Spruce” was nearby, and we left the car in the lot while we walked up the road to it after dinner.  It sure was large, really thick and pretty tall (sign said: 58’ 11” circumference, 191’ tall, @1000 years old, 922 American Forest Association points) … we enjoyed it.  Whether it really *is* the largest may be a subject for debate, or maybe not.

We wound around to another path after the tree, back to South Shore Road, and walked slowly back to the car, then drove back to the Inn.  They had tables set up on their lawn, and it was such a lovely evening we took the cribbage board out there and had a fine game.  Some small flying insects tried to bother us, but they weren’t biting and so failed.  We soon retired for the evening, it had been another long day full of wonders!

Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:

• Western Sword Fern
• Candy Flower
• Horsetail
• Bracken
• Woodland Buttercup
• Threeleaf Foamflower
• Piggyback plant/Youth-on-Age
• Candy Flower
• Trailing Blackberry
• Pacific Waterleaf
• Oregon Woodsorrel
• Cowparsnip
• Purple Foxglove
• Seaside Pea
• Giant Vetch
• Salmonberry
• Large-leaved Avens
• Lady Fern
• Red Clover
• White Clover
• Western Lily of the Valley
• Red Osier Dogwood

Amazing Washington - Northern Areas of Olympic NP

 May 29

Woke up to overcast skies and a forecast of rain, but clearing later in the day.  While checking out local restaurants the night before, we had come across some mixed references to Jazzy Joshua’s, which was right across the parking lot from us.  So we checked it out for breakfast, if only to save time.  On entering past the Bible display, it was instantly apparent that this restaurant was owned/run by Christians, and one delightful Christian was the only person besides us there that morning, an Asian named Lynne (sp?).  She was eager to talk, but not in a way that would put off Northeasterners, and she was the first person of several we met who were gobsmacked to meet people from exotic Massachusetts.  She confirmed that the area gets much less snow than you might expect, and gave us some great tips on where to hike, actually just reinforcing what we were leaning towards.  And we had a great breakfast there, I had the “Kitchen Stove” omelet, which had everything in it but the … well, you get the picture.

Back to the room for final switching to trail pack mode after that, and then a short trip to the main VC at Olympic NP (which is *in* Port Angeles), arriving about 15 minutes before it opened at 9:00.  We were psyched to explore the Park!  BUT … it was a rainy morning and we huddled under the front awning of the VC, reading signs about road and trail closings, with a volunteer, a young Ranger, and a gathering group of schoolkids on an outing.

The volunteer was talkative, as a lot of Washingtonians turned out to be, and this was great.  We were very disappointed to see from their displays that road access to the first trail we had earmarked was closed because of snow.  The volunteer wanted to recommend others, but when he asked for our itinerary he looked blank when I said we’d be going to Lake Quinault after Port Angeles.

OK, here’s a needed digression.  We come from a world where letters count (some), and European languages at least, are respected.  Some place name pronunciations in Washington did not show respect at first hearing, but that may be my prejudice.  “Sequim” is pronounced “Skwim.”  I pronounced “Lake Quinault” as a French word (“key-NO”) but the regional pronunciation is “kwih-NALT.”  Lynne told us that many Washington place names have silent vowels, and cited Sequim and also the city of Hoquiam, pronounced “HO-kum.”  What do you know?

Anyway, our friend figured out what I meant, and then was busy trying to tell me about his cousin who lived 5 miles East of Boston, and I had to interrupt.  “He must be awful wet then, because 5 miles East of Boston is ocean.”  He was stunned … “So, Boston is *on* the coast?”  Next he asked where Seattle was on our itinerary, and that there was a great farmers’ market there.  I told him that Seattle was not on our itinerary, that we’d be flying straight out after Rainier.  He was sputtering.  Why would you fly to a city and then not go to the city?  But we all were saved by the rushing phalanx of schoolkids and by the opening of the VC.

I bellied right up to the counter and verified with the Ranger that the road to our targeted trailhead was really closed, though she pointed out that we could walk there through several miles of snow if we wanted.  Jeez, and it was raining out and foggy!  Not good weather for tourists, but we huddled and decided to pivot and go West to see Madison Falls and perhaps the Lake Crescent region, saving the socked in heights of Hurricane Ridge for that afternoon or tomorrow.

Great decision as it turned out.  We gathered literature, purchased a t-shirt and hat, inspected their wonderful taxidermy, and piled back into the car and headed West on Park Avenue past the Port Angeles High School, eventually ending up on 101 West, where we put the pedal to the metal (as much as possible through intermittent road construction), past roadsides forests of ferns and invasive weeds out to the Elwha area of Olympic NP.  It was a long sentence.

We hooked hard left on Olympic Hot Springs Road and followed the Elwha River South for a few miles.  This and the other rivers we saw on the Olympic Peninsula are all prime salmon breeding grounds, though swimming up them is quite a feat.  The road was closed beyond the Madison Falls parking lot and trailhead (since 2017 because of a washout … the NPS really needs more funds to maintain what they have), but that’s as far as we were going anyway.

Madison Falls is a short trail, and we were instantly amazed by what at first we could not identify and were barely able to take in, bigleaf maples totally coated with clubmoss and licorice ferns.  No one else was there and we were standing in the rain (all with raincoats and hats, no problem), with our mouths hanging open, looking at these majestic trees.  And then we walked the short path up to the falls in Madison Creek, gushing 100 feet down moss-covered basalt, and we loved that sight too.  We sure saw some more awesome trees, mightier falls, and more cascading rivers later in the trip, but being on a smaller scale, this was a great introduction.  Our minds were opened by Madison Falls and we had them to ourselves on that rainy morning.

We began to see a few breaks in the clouds as we got back on 101 West and proceeded to the Sol Duc (sometimes spelled Soleduck) area of the Park.  The road wound back and forth, uphill past driveways leading down to houses clustered around the sides of Lake Sutherland, then across a wide strip of glacial moraine, emerging between mountains covered with Douglas fir and western hemlock to wind around the beautiful shores of Lake Crescent, back in the National Park.  This glacial lake plunges to over 600 feet, and the water is so free of algae that it glows turquoise around its edges.  The lake is home to the Beardslee and Crescenti trout, which are found nowhere else in the world.

We just had to pull over and soak in the view of the lake at the first viewpoint, along with several other cars.  We were in awe again, but the driver of the car just before us took the opportunity to try to drag me into conversation.  “You know it’s actually two lakes!” he told me, as an opening gambit.  He then covered many other topics and found out that we were visiting from exotic Massachusetts and had never been to Washington before.  He was awed by that, but it didn’t slow him down.  He told me what he thought was some great info, “You know, in Clallam County all the busses are free, so you guys can take a bus into Bainbridge Island and then take a ferry into Seattle.  There’s a great farmers’ market there!”  I thanked him for the info but we wouldn’t be going into Seattle.  He was taken aback, which was all I needed to walk away and look at the view.

The rain had stopped, the clouds were blowing away to the East, and it was becoming a lovely day.  Got back in the car and wound farther down the lake, past the Storm King Ranger Station and the Fairholme Campground area, eventually turning left down the Sol Duc Road.  We drove several miles down this, past the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort and Campground, and parked at the Sol Duc Trailhead.

We were going to check out Sol Duc Falls and then do the Lover’s Lane Loop Trail, and so geared up for a long hike.  This was a big departure/re-supply point for back-country hiking, and there was a shelter for hikers caught in thunderstorms not far down the trail.  There were several people on the first part of the hike down to the falls, but it wasn’t crowded at all, and then there was practically no one on the Lover’s Lane Loop.  And this hike was beyond amazing, I don’t know how to begin describing it.  Perhaps some pictures would help.

This was old growth, temperate rain forest.  We saw lots of specimens of the bigleaf maples, and also Douglas firs, Sitka spruces, red cedars, and western hemlocks; the most impressive trees might have been the fallen ones that had become massive nurse logs, some sprouting and supporting hundred-year old trees themselves.  Sword ferns, vine maples, devil’s walking-stick, tiny wildflowers, every variety of moss we’d ever seen and many we hadn’t, lichens, everything draped with clubmoss, mushrooms and fungi, rocks covered with layers of growth, everything alive.  We saw just a few flying insects and a few millipedes and spiders, but no other animals that day, just amazing plant life growing everywhere.

We got to the falls themselves after almost a mile, and this was pretty spectacular too.  One guidebook we had gives a technical description of how the bedrock tilted to form a narrow channel in the river, but you’ve gotta see it to believe it.  There was a heavy stream of mist coming up from the cataract, and it formed a rainbow that we struggled to capture with the camera.

We continued past the falls on to the Lover’s Lane Trail, that wound for 5 or so more miles up along the West side of the river to the campground and then down the East side, back to the parking lot.  But after a mile or so we decided to change plans; this would have been a few more hours of the same thing, we only had a few granola bars and bananas and were getting hungry, and we wanted to get back to Hurricane Ridge that day since the weather had turned so nice.

So we reversed, cruised by the falls again and took some more pictures … the sun had moved and lit up a different rainbow over the cataract … and then back up the Sol Duc Trail to the now crowded parking lot.  We cruised back up the road looking for a secluded picnic table to make our PB&J sandwiches on, and found a fine one right before the Salmon Cascades site.

Back up to the head of the road and turned right on 101, but before heading straight back to Port Angeles we wanted to check out the Marymere Falls Trail at Lake Crescent, which the Ranger had recommended to us that morning.  It was a 45 minute drive back to the Storm King Ranger Station at Lake Crescent, where we parked and followed the path down to the beach, and then started on the Marymere Falls Trail by going through a culvert under route 101.

This was another mile there and mile back, through old growth forest dominated by Douglas fir, which started off flat but then went steeply uphill to a falls in a tributary of Barnes Creek, cascading down off Mt. Storm King, which featured in the Klallam Indians’ origin story of Lakes Crescent and Sutherland (the two lakes).  That story is covered in this article, as well as other gruesome tales.

Returned down the same path, filled our water bottles at the Ranger Station, and then continued East past the two lakes for the 30-minute drive to Port Angeles and the Hurricane Ridge entrance to the Park.  There we passed the VC we’d been to that morning and shot up and up into the blue sky, surrounded by trees and snow-covered mountains.

We thought we’d done a lot of uphill driving in Great Smoky Mountains NP, over the saddle in Hawaii, and up the Moki Dugway in Utah.  But this may have beaten them all, as it climbed and climbed and became twistier and twistier.  I’m not a cautious driver, but this was getting a little hairy, especially when there was so much to look at and the drops we were going around were so steep.  In 18 miles of serpentine road, we gained 5242 feet.  Play the video on this page, which must have been taken right around the time of year we were there.

We finally got to the top and there was a big parking lot, but where was the VC??  We parked near a hole in the ground where it apparently used to be … it had burned down in 2023 and probably isn’t going to be rebuilt any time soon.  They were running a gift shop out of a trailer.  Again, the NPS needs better support to maintain its Parks for the enjoyment of the people.

But the key thing was, this was an absolutely beautiful place!  There was a range of snow-capped mountains right across the deep valley of the Lillian River to the South, and behind us was the ridge itself, partly covered with snow (but with a few trails open), and affording absolutely lovely views off to the North over the Strait to Canada.  In fact, Sarah’s phone buzzed and T-Mobile had texted her, “Welcome to Canada!”  Another funny thing was the presence of blacktail deer, who were everywhere.  They wandered across the parking lot, “innocently” blocking cars, lounged on the steep slopes, and seemed oblivious to the swarming humans.

We set off on one trail through subalpine meadow until it was blocked by deep snow, then circled back around to the High Ridge Loop Trail, up to a summit with bunches of delicate wildflowers growing in the scree as the trail got steeper.  At one switchback, Sarah figured she’d gone high enough, but Dave and I continued up almost to the top, where we were blocked by snow again.  We saw a large marmot sunning himself across the meadow.

Oh no, our long day of exploring the spectacular Park was drawing to a close, and we were getting pretty tired out, especially after that steep hike.  Wandered around a bit more, but then it was back to the car and down and down the road, stopping at a few places to enjoy the view and let the brakes cool off … we could actually smell them.

Time to start thinking about dinner, but first back to the hotel to change out of our smoking boots and get in a little rest.  We found a place right down by the dock in the center of Port Angeles, and realized that this was right near the City Pier, which had an observation tower.  So we headed down there and it was a sparkling evening, out on the water.  The town has its own spit, which forms a long, curving pier that hosts a Coast Guard air station and shelters the harbor.  This is the first port for many ships coming across the Pacific into the Salish Sea, and several massive ones were anchored just offshore in a line.

We snapped a few pictures on the dock, and then drove a couple of blocks into the old town, where the restaurant we’d settled on was mobbed and had a 40-minute wait!  Oh well, we debated about a Plan B and decided that the thing to do was just go to the restaurant we were parked in front of, the Oak Street Bistro.  Strange that the one a few blocks away was mobbed and this one was deserted, but the food was fine, the beer was cold, and the service was mellow but good enough.

Found a gas station on the way back to the hotel, filled up the tank and got a few more bottles of water in their store.  We hadn’t gotten enough at the WinCo but now could rotate them and re-fill the empties when/where potable water was available.  Back in our suite in the Super 8 we played another game that evening, but ended up going to bed not that late.  It had been quite a day!

Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:

• Broadleaf Lupine
• Kinnikinnick
• Salal
• Western sword fern
• Alumroot
• Vine Maple
• Bigleaf Maple
• Hedge Mustard
• Narrowleaf plantain
• Ox-eye daisy
• Coastal Mugwort
• Licorice Fern
• Western Bunchberry
• Deer's-Foot/Vanilla Leaf 
• Devil's walking stick 
• Scouler's Corydalis
• Red-berried Elder
• Deer Fern
• two-leaved Solomon's seal/false lily of the valley
• American Fairybells
• Stream Violet
• Pacific Trillium
• Woodland Strawberry
• forget-me-nots
• Herb-robert
• Piggyback plant/Youth-on-Age
• Glacier Lily
• Lanceleaf Springbeauty
• Coast Range Lomatium
• Spreading Phlox
• Coast Paintbrush
• Orange honeysuckle
• Arctic Lupine
• Common Vetch