Spring '23 Trip: Part 1

Dates: May 30 - June 1, 2023

Crew: Monica Mah, Kai Cui, Matej Sebo

Locations: Olympic National Park: Mt. Storm King, Hoh rainforest, Ruby and Rialto beaches

A Land of Olympian Proportions

At some point between my trips to Ohio and Mt. Shasta, I was sitting at home, thinking about how warm it was getting and how my getaway to Northern Michigan for the now-burgeoning-tradition trip to Gavin's cabin couldn't come soon enough. Then Monica texted me and asked how interested I would be in joining her, Kai, and their friend Matej from California on a trip out to Washington state to explore Olympic National Park; their 4th party member had a change of plans and cancelled. I immediately said yes, head swimming with visions of lush forests, rugged coastline, and snowcapped mountains as I remembered how much I loved WA on my first trip out there to climb Mt. Baker.

Then they gave me the details, and my heart sank. They were flying to Seattle and starting the camping on May 30...when I already had myself scheduled to be in Michigan with a flight the day after. Not to let one adventure kill another in the cradle, I got to work logistic-ing my way out of the situation. Within the hour, I had a continent-spanning solution locked and loaded: fly TX-MI, enjoy an up north memorial day, run my first 10k, then hop a flight MI-WA and backpack our way around Olympic, then fly WA-TX to make the biggest triangle ever.

Scenes from the cabin: Reid and I as workin' men, Loon and Moon, and race victors.

Scenes from Traverse City: Chevy cat (PC: Reid), Grand Traverse Lighthouse plaques and bulb (Hi Sophie!)

After turning in a better-than-I-hoped 50:19 10k time, it was time to take the cardio to the mountains. I boarded a very very early plane to Seattle and was on my way.

On the other end lay Port Angeles, where we made our customary NPS visitor center passthrough, both to secure our backcountry permits for the backpacking portion of the trip, and to see what the current conditions were. Unfortunately the Hurricane Ridge area high in the Olympic Mountains was still closed due to arson >:( but the rest of the park was ours for the taking. We started by driving to the sprawling Lake Crescent area to hike while we still had daylight on our side. Monica and I wanted to hike Mt. Storm King, the high overlook of the area, which has a reputation for being an "adventurous" trail. Kai and Matej accompanied us halfway, then decided to turn back and go investigate nearby Marymere Falls.

Though the trail is a short 1.5 miles from base to summit, it also covers a strenuous 2,000 foot gain in that time. 1,000 vertical feet per mile is already steep, so I would classify this as relentless. We reached a tall cliffline overlooking the lake far below, and behind us was a spiny ridge of mountains covered head to toe in pines.

After the cliffline, we reached the final portion of the hike- a steep, loose dirt slope that had fixed ropes tied to trees at various points to serve as handrails/safety ropes for climbers. I didn't find them necessary on the ascent but they definitely came in handy when we were going down. Regardless, the dirt gave way easily and we dodged many pebble-slides caused by the hikers above us. Again, it was easy, but maybe not for the faint of heart or heights-haters. As we churned upwards, friendly gray-white Canada Jays flitted among the bushes. At this point the lake was a deep blue, with bands of tropical color near the shore.

Finally, the hard work paid off as we scrambled up the pile of rock that makes up the summit of Mt. Storm King. After a slightly narrow ridge walk to the final cliff edge, we took in the view. Lake Crescent was catching the low angle sun and glowing a bright white, and the mountains surrounding the lake were dark and hazy. Peering even further into the horizon you could see the waters of the Salish Sea, leading to the Pacific. The Canada Jays hung close by, hopping from rock to rock.

Reversing course was slightly more hazardous but much quicker. We scrambled off the summit, shuffled down the dusty slopes using the ropes for speed control, and were back to the main trail. After a rapid descent, we decided we couldn't bear to miss out on the falls, so we jog/hiked the 2 mile loop to get out to the falls and back to the car to meet Matej and Kai before they got sick of waiting for us. Marymere falls was a delicate ribbon of a waterfall, with a lovely flat forest walk to and from it. One moss-coated oak especially stood out as it glowed in the evening sun.

The sun was getting low as we wound along the road that hugged the banks of Crescent Lake. We stopped at a few viewpoints to marvel at the lake and the sounds of wind and waves coming in, but generally proceeded with haste to find our campsite before it got too dark. We pulled into the Fairholme campground, perched at the far end of the lake in the tall pines, and found our reserved site halfway down the hillside. The forest was thick with ferns and moss, and dense. There was barely enough room for Matej's 1-man tent and Monica/Kai's twin. Fortunately, I had my hammock tent and strung it up between two pines for a perfect bed.

We cooked up our first meal, enjoyed watching the sun go down over the lake, and then Matej entertained us and our neighbors with some LED spinning contraption he had brought. Once it was dark and the bugs came out to say hello, there was nothing left to do but crawl in my hammock and rock to sleep. Day one done!

Sol Duc

Packing up camp we set off for the next stop- Sole Duc falls. The signage was very contradictory, with some saying "Soleduck" and some "Sol Duc" in reference to both the trail and falls. This was a short walk through a beautiful old-growth forest to the falls where they plunge 50 feet into a tight slot canyon. A footbridge crosses the chasm and offers great views of the three closely-packed falls. We were blessed with a sunny day and the sunbeams that slipped through the forest canopy illuminated moss on the trees, lit up the falls mist, and created dancing rainbows everywhere.

I couldn't believe the amount of vegetation clinging to every wall of the canyon, making the sides green and black, constantly bathed in mist. I'll probably use the word lush 500 times in this writeup, and it's probably an understatement of how it feels in the rainforest, right down to the air you breathe. We enjoyed waterfall views from up close, upriver, and up above on the slick wooden bridge, seeing how the light played with all the water from every angle.

We had a really exciting stop lined up for lunch on the way to the far-western reaches of the Olympic Peninsula... Forks, WA lies along the drive, better known as the setting of Twilight. As expected, they really played into it.

Forks had an entire twilight-themed store. Which side of the treaty line to stay on though? 🤔

Rialto Beach

The main event of the day though was backpacking on Rialto beach to the hole-in-the-wall, an arch that provides passage through a massive bluff that runs from ocean to the rainforested cliffs that are essentially impassable. The cool thing is that you can only pass through at low tide, then the tide comes in and cuts off the far side of the arch. With Kai's tide chart research completed, we wanted to backpack the 2 miles down from Rialto beach, pass through the arch, let the tide come in, and enjoy a night cut off from everyone else on the rugged beach. The first part of the beach was literally logjammed with massive piles of driftwood smashed together by the waves.

We hadn't gone too far down the rocky beach before we noticed a pair of Bald Eagles milling about the top of a dead tree. With my farthest zoom I was able to get pretty good views of them- I didn't even know eagles liked the beach, but I guess it makes for good fishing. One eagle was constantly zooming out to scout over the waves, and one was busy preening and napping. At the same time, we started passing our first "sea stacks," the name for the rugged towers of rock that jut out from the ocean here in the Pacific surf. These remainders of cliffs weathered away are an impressive sight (and a tempting climbing target).

After a few miles of this, stopping to marvel at stacks of all shapes and sizes, we finally came to the hole-in-the-wall itself. We had timed low tide perfectly and the arch was high and dry. Looking through it the beach continued as far as the eye can see, and sure enough there was no way around or over it - only through.

After passing through the portal and continuing a ways, we debated where to camp; the tide charts didn't make clear how far up the beach the water would truly come at night. Also, it was perpetually windy out on the exposed beach! We decided to hunt for deer trails up the wooded cliffs and find a clearing in the shelter of the woods for our tents. After a while, we found a path through and set up in a lovely cove under the spreading arms of a massive oak. After that, I explored the area around camp. There were huge pieces of old iron, probably from old shipwrecks, all kinds of sea life, and lots of rock and log-hopping to do. I also realized I had no spoon so I got busy carving one from a suitable piece of driftwood. We settled down in a nest between driftwood logs to shelter from the perpetual wind and ate dinner. There were a few clouds and fishing boats distantly visible but otherwise it was a fine warm evening in the golden sun.

Before it got too dark, we wanted to go see the hole-in-the-wall again and backtracked a bit to it. The rising tidewater was starting to fill the nooks and crannies of the rocks around the base. We took one last journey through it before we became isolated for the night, and tried staging a group picture. I balanced my camera on a rock and then had the 10-second timer to leapfrog and dash over the slick rocks and seaweed to join the group in time.

When we returned to camp, Monica spotted something strange floating in the surf. We really couldn't tell what it was, but my guess was driftwood and Monica swore it was trash. My camera lens was the only magnifying object we had, so I took a series of pictures to try and puzzle it out. When I zoomed in, I was shocked to see 4 paws and a head. It was a sea otter, floating on its back! They sleep this way and this one was taking an all-time nap while waves smashed into the rocks around it and glowed pink in the sunset light... otterly fantastic!

With the sunset imminent, I braved the winds to try and capture a timelapse of it over the ocean. I rockhopped out 50 yards from the true beach to a sea stack, scrambled up, and hunkered down for the slow sunset. Monica also made the bold crossing. I had really expected the sun to set over the water (sun sets in the west and all that) but we must have been on a lagoon or the like because it set above a cliff just across the near reaches of the water from us. I made do, capturing sunstars as it lowered through the trees and disappeared behind the rocks.

After the sun went out of sight and colors began to die out, I recollected my camera gear and turned around to find myself on a quickly sinking island. The lovely dry way I'd taken to get out here had been swallowed by the tide, leaving just rocks poking through the surf that churned and frothed. Not thrilled with the idea of getting my shoes soaked or wading through the freezing surf, I picked out my path and started jumping. Aside from the occasional toe dip, I made it back to shore dry! Monica watched me almost lose it and take a plunge several times and decided to just take off her sandals and wade back.

The last fiery glows of the sunset died out behind the cliffs, but we all stayed out on the beach in the dark for a while to enjoy the stars and waves before calling it a night. Hammock sheltered from the worst of the wind and wave sprays bombarding the beach, I quickly rocked to sleep.

The fog stayed heavily on the beach for nearly the entire morning's hike back. My biggest excitement came when we passed an overgrown sea stack that had a lone bald eagle perched atop it. I pulled out my camera, ready to capture him being majestic. As I did so, he tilted back his head to let out an eagle cry (although apparently it's more like a chicken noise), and then leapt off and flew towards us! My shutter speed was not set in anticipation of that on such a dim morning, so the wingtips were blurry in all my shots, but I was really thrilled to have gotten what I did. There was only a brief moment when I first saw his furious face pointed squarely at me that I thought I might have looked a little too tasty and was about to have my head ripped off by eagle talons.

Hoh Rainforest

The Hoh rainforest is one of the largest rainforests in the U.S., and the rainiest in the contiguous U.S. receiving almost 130 inches of rain a year. It's a lush green wonderland of mosses and ferns, spruce and hemlock. I was really hoping to see a Pacific Tree Frog but was able to settle for a Roosevelt Elk sighting as it browsed in the undergrowth. We hiked the Hall of Mosses trail and Spruce Nature Trail for a total of about 2 miles. The parking lot had a large plaque (see above) declaring Olympic as a UNESCO World Heritage Site- one of 25 in the USA. We love plaques!

The Hall of Mosses is a short trail that takes you out to the most densely vegetated part of the forest. We passed through numerous gateways of low-lying branches and hanging mosses. Not too far into the hike, I saw a perfect right-angle tree stump that I just had to climb on top of for some photo cheesin'. Behind it was a tree with branches fanning in every direction like a bird spreading its wings.

Wandering down the trail, we saw every variation of moss on wood possible. The centerpiece of the hike is a collection Maples draped head to toe in spikemoss. I played with the bright light we had available to bring out the most of the foliage that would often be hidden in deep shadow on a rainy day.

As promised, this centerpiece surrounds you on all sides with verdant green. It was like being inside a cathedral of plant life. We took pictures, sat to admire our surroundings, and then doubled back to hit the spruce trail. This trail was a more interpretive nature trail, with signs along the way describing the flora and fauna of the rainforest.

After one sign taught us about nurse logs we began seeing them everywhere- giant spruces and hemlocks that fell and became nutrient banks for new trees to feed off as they grew. Giant trees and giant leaves everywhere- it really felt like a jungle scene from the Land Before Time.

Ruby Beach

Leaving the rainforest, we spotted an elk and some deer wandering through the dense underbrush- a real treat. Then we piled back into the car and set off to our last stop of the day and this first half of the trip- Ruby Beach. We had a campsite in Kalaloch, a 175-spot site situated atop a tall bluff over the beach and ocean. We had a calm spot tucked away in the woods and I enjoyed putting up my hammock and lounging in the sun for a bit. Then we headed to the beach to explore until sunset.

It was windy beyond belief on the beach, whipping up enough mist off the water to make it look like another fog had come. As we got down to the sand, we saw the heavy driftwood logs that populated Rialto beach had been put to use here on Ruby. People had made lean-tos, log cabins, tepees, and every other variety of shelter you could think of out of them, We picked one particularly dilapitated lean-to and enjoyed a sheltered lunch. Then we got to see the famous "Tree of Life," a wind-bent ancient spruce tree that spans a crumbling cliffside and survives against all odds. You can walk up undearneath the trunk and see how little support it has, but it clings on with its roots and persists, looking like a gigantic bonsai.

We continued down the beach, just looking for wildlife and sea stacks to pass the time until sunset. A large scoop of pelicans glided by, hanging low over the waves as they hunted. I saw seagulls aplenty too, and atop a tall tree with a dominant overlook of the entire area, a bald eagle roosting. The sunny day was a perfect one for birding.

We were most excited, though, to go tidepooling. As the tide rises, marine life comes in (or stays) in nooks and crannies of the rocks and stacks that make up the beach. Then as the tide goes out, some of those animals hang out there, sustained by the water where they claimed their space. We hopped everywhere, finding anemones, barnacles, oysters, snails, sea stars, and mussells. Vibrant colors and every texture from slimy to sharp could be found. The only thing we wanted to see and couldn't was an octopus.

At some point, I just couldn't resist climbing one of the sea stacks. I left my backpack and camera at the bottom and started scrambling up the dirty side of the tallest nearby stack. The rock was extremely crumbly, often falling away in chunks at the lightest touch, so I had to tread carefully. After a tricky little boulder problem to get off the ground, a low-angle walkup lead me to a somewhat scary boulder problem (V0) 30 feet above the ground. Picking the strongest foothold to push off, I managed to lever up and grab a sturdy-feeling clump of brush to climb the final few feet of crumbly dirt and rock with. The views were worth the climb- waves rolled in ceaselessly behind me towards the wooded coastline and everything facing the sun glowed gold.

I managed to scramble off without (major) incident and we continued on our way. As we went down the beach far past the last people we saw, we came across a whole aerie of eagles milling about on the beach. There were 5-10 of them taking turns hopping in a cluster on the rocks and soaring out over the water to spy out fish. Occasionally one would plunge down and try to snatch its prey, but I didn't see any succeed. I swapped lenses and inched closer to them step by step, snapping pictures every time one went aloft. There were too many stoic poses to choose from, so... enjoy.

At some point, I got a step too close and the entire aerie lifted off, never to be seen again. Fortunately, the sun was getting really low, and I was ready to backtrack to a good spot to photograph the stacks. A large(ish) crowd had gathered near the beachhead to take pictures, and several guys with tripods and some heavy-duty camera setups had plunked down together, so I figured that was a pretty good spot.

Setting up near the tripod crew, I also wanted to try another sunset timelapse with my gopro. So I wandered out far enough that I could get a good view of the stacks and found a rock to set up on, confident it would be well above the tide's influence. Then I backtracked to my own spot to camp out and get photos. The sun went down big and brilliantly golden, dipping behind the largest of the sea stacks. I ran furiously around the beach, posing it in as many spots as I could. Crashing waves provided a constantly changing scene.

Pastel colors of yellow, orange, pink, and blue diffused through everything once the sun was out of sight. The sky held its warm colors in the clouds and the ocean brought a cool blue to the foreground, making for a wonderfully contrasting image.

The tide rose and rose until I found my chosen spot immersed in shin-deep freezing water. I held out as long as I could, trying to outlast my gopro on its precarious perch. The water rose and fell around it and its tiny but mighty tripod time and time again, until suddenly a violent surge toppled it, and I had to run into the receding water to grab the gopro back before it ended up in Davey Jones' locker. As with all videos I take, I'll get to looking at that someday. But with the light fading (and the beach area rapidly shrinking), it was getting on time to go. We weaved back through trickles of incoming seawater and piles of driftwood, taking one last pause at a perfectly still pool that had yet to reconnect with the Pacific. It reflected the sea stacks and the pastels of the sky perfectly, producing some of my favorite images of the day.

The last of the oranges and blues faded as we headed back up the long staircase through the cliffline and back to our camp. The trip was just half over though (the easy half); the true goal was coming next with a backpacking journey into Enchanted Valley, one of the most beautiful places ever. Stay tuned for the next post!