PA is at the very top of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, bordered by the Strait Of Juan de Fuca to the north, and the Olypmic Mountain Range to the south. Needless to say, the area is absolutely stunning, and we enjoyed being able to check it out. I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the beaches though.. This very well could come from the fact that we have been spoiled when it comes to beaches for the first leg of our journey, with the white sandy beaches along the coasts of California and Oregon. If you are looking for a white sandy beach, then the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula probably isn't where you want to go. I mean, there are sandy beaches in the area, we just didn't get to explore them much because they wouldn't allow dogs on them, which will put a damper in our parade everyday. We did find a really nice beach in Port Townsend that the pups could play on, and there also happened to be a really fun rope swing there too. This by far was the best beach in the area, but it was about a 45 minute drive, one way, from where we were staying. Not really a location that we would get to visit more than once, so we made sure to enjoy our time there while we could.
One of the most beautiful aspects of the PA area is Olympic National Park. This park has been a bucket list item for us, and it definitely did not disappoint. The Olympic Mountains are beautiful and majestic, even though they aren't the biggest mountains we've ever seen. Overall height is nothing compared to a lot of the mountains we saw in Colorado, but when you consider that you are starting at sea level, 7000 feet is still a really big mountain. There are actually three different aspects to the park, the mountains make up the biggest part of it, but there is also a beach and rainforest aspect as well. We were lucky enough to get explore every aspect a little bit, but since it is a National Park, the pups aren't allowed to explore with us. We ended up breaking down our visit into two different trips, to be able to accommodate them as well.
The first visit we took into the park was a big day, we wanted to see a waterfall, visit a rainforest and end at the beach. Luckily there were a couple of things that we could do with the dogs, and were able to wear them out enough that we didn't feel too bad for making them ride around in their crates as much as they did. We actually planned the day around this, our first and last stops were the dog friendly ones, which left us plenty of time in the middle to explore.
The first area that the dogs could go explore was the beautiful Lake Crescent. Lake Crescent has a really interesting history to it, the local indian legends say that the lake was created when the two local tribes were fighting when an old Moutain King got frustrated with the fighting and threw a boulder into the river, killing all the warriors and blocking the river causing it to start building the lake. While this is a indian legend, there is actual geological evidence to support that a rockslide may have been the reason the lake started. Another fun fact that I learned about this lake is they have no idea how deep it is. There were measurements taken back in the 60's, but apparently they were fairly inaccurate. One depth that they have recorded is 1000 feet deep, but in actualitiy, they have no idea. I rememeber looking at the lake as we were driving by it thinking that it was REALLY deep. You could look into the crystal clear blue water and see that it gets really deep really fast.
There is a trail that runs along the north side of the lake on the Old Spruce Railroad Trail. This railroad was build during one of the world wars, as a means of hauling logs to PA, where they were going to build airplanes for the war. The war ended before the railroad was finished, so it never got used as a railroad. Now it is a well worn 8 mile round-trip trail, one of the only trails in the Park that allows dogs and bikers. We didn't walk the whole trail, we probably only went about two miles in before reaching a tunnel over the railroad tracks. The tunnel had definitely seen better days, and now that I have learned a little bit of history about the tracks, I wonder if the tunnel ever actually was finished. Structures like this one are fascinating to us when we think about how much work it took to build them back in the early 1900's. The amount of man hours to make a tunnel that massive, in rock is just incredible, makes me feel like a slouch when I think of times that I thought I was having a rough day. As we were hanging out in the tunnel we noticed some people on a canoe, paddling our direction, so we decided to just head back since we were being naughty and letting the pups just run off leash. As we exited the tunnel, I hear Kyle yell "GRAB THAT DOG!" Referring to Trigger of course, she's the naughtiest. As I grab her I look up to see a little black tailed buck walking up the trail toward us. We figured that he had tried to go the other direction from us, but then the canoe must have made him turn back our direction. Since there really wasn't anywhere for him to go, we decided to beat feet out of there to give him some room.
Next stop in our day was at the Sol Doc Falls. The trail head to the falls was 12 miles off of the main road into Olympic National Park. This area of the park gets really busy we were told, but we fortunately beat the crowds today. We have a tendency to be in places like this early, before what we call the 'witching hour', which is when all the people come out. This hour is typically right around 10 am, when ever we can, we make sure to get out there early to avoid these crowds. The hike up to the falls is about a 3 mile round trip, and is a really easy stroll through what I would call a mixed bag of old growth and rain forests. The falls themselves are stunning. There are three different fingers of the falls that flow into a small narrow canyon that looks like it would be fun to kayak through, if I knew how to kayak that is. There is a bridge that goes over the canyon that provides excellent photographic opportunities, as well as some look over areas to see the falls from upstream too.
After our two little hikes we headed further down Hwy 101 to Forks. Everyone knows Forks from the Twilight movies, and it was fun to joke about seeing a vampire or werewolf while we were there, but oddly enough, we didn't see one. Kyle joke that "the problem with this area is you can't ever tell who is a vampire and who isn't because the sun never shines anyway!" We had thought about trying to do a little movie location tour, but come to find out, the movie wasn't filmed here at all. Twilight was just set in Forks, but it was actually filmed in Oregon, so there are no filming locations to stalk. Instead we decided to grab a quick bite to eat before we headed to the rainforest.
The Hoh Rainforest is about 15 miles south of Forks, and is just one of the rainforests in Olympic National Park. Dogs are not allowed anywhere in the rainforest, which limited what we can do of course. We decided to just pick the shortest trail that we could to walk around on to save time. We decided on the Hall of Mosses nature trail. Its a short little stroll, only 0.8 mi, but it walks you through some really cool mossy trees.
After our rainforest stroll, we headed over to La Push and Rialto Beach to get the pups out again. We joked that hopefully we would get to see a werewolf while we were there, but if the vampires aren't out the werewolves don't come out to play, maybe next time. ;) Rialto beach was pretty, but it was quite volatile. I am sure on a calm, sunny day this beach is probably stunning, and fun to spend a day at. We didn't get to experience a calm sunny beach, we got a very windy, and violent wave day. Regardless it was beautiful, but very busy with people and dogs. This is one of only two or three areas in the national park that the dogs can go, which brings the out the masses. I typically walk out in front in situations like this, because Trigger tends to be our social coordinator. She and I will distract any pup that seems like it wants to play, so that Kyle and the boys can just keep walking before things get nutty. Today while Trig and I were socializing with a dog named Luke, Kyle almost got taken out by the current as he was waiting for us to move. He let out a bit of a giggle as he tried to run away from getting drenched, and made sure to remind us that "you never turn your back on the ocean!" We waited until we were throughly beat up by the wind to head back to the camper for the evening. It was definitely a long day, we were traveling for almost 12 hours, luckily we don't have days like this too often.
Our final Olympic National Park adventure, was Hurricane Ridge. Hurricane Ridge is located about 45 minutes outside of PA in the heart of the Olympic Mountains. The drive up to the ridge was awesome. When we left PA it was very rainy and just dreary, and we were just hoping that we would be able to see something once we got to the top. Once we made it about half way up, we drove out of the clouds and were presented with a beautiful, crisp, sun kissed mountain side. Absolutely gorgeous! The view from the visitor center reminded us very much of Colorado, just mountains as far as you could see. We stood there and just took it in for a while, it was so quiet and peaceful. The trail head for the hike is about another 1/2 mile up the road. The path is paved for most of the hike and leads you up to a ridge that you can see forever from. To the north of the ridge you can see the coastal mountains in British Columbia, and to the south you can see all of the Olympic Mountain Range. The hike isn't too hard, but it is definitely a little bit of a work out. Kyle had the idea that he wanted to get up to the top as fast as possible and wanted to beat everyone else that was one the trail, and at one point was running up the trail. I kept up with him for the most part, but I kept stopping to take pictures, so I fell behind. At one point I looked at him on the switchback above me and just asked why he was racing, just to see him smile and keep singing his little song as he made his way to the top. On the way back down he sang his little tune that he was singing to himself on the way up the ridge. It was quite hysterical, so I decided that it should be video taped.
Olympic National Park is a beautiful park, one that we would love to be able to explore more, but always have our dogs with us, which limits what we actually get to see. There is a lot of opportunity for hiking and backpacking through the park, something that we would love to some day come back and do. Right now though that is just not our focus. We will definitely be back to explore this area more someday!
