twilight

We slept well that night, although I think it may have rained again.  However, time heals all wounds, and the rain is no longer significant.  I do remember that Matt spent the better part of the evening blowing up our air mattress, which was sweet, and it kept us dry and off the ground.  (Correction - it DID rain!)

 Matt took this picture because he said my hair looked pretty.  What a joker.

Our campsite at the cheesily named "Heart O' the Hills" campground was surrounded by the tall trees characteristic of our entire trip.  Beautiful, eerie, haunting.

Anyone ever seen/read Twilight?  I stopped after the first book but after being out in the setting the books are based on (we were just a few miles from Forks), I started to think about them more.  To the point where I had to forcibly STOP thinking about them because I was already scared of bears, no use adding vampires to the mix.  Anyway, now I want to give it another shot and I got book #2 from the library today.  We'll see how it goes.

We had a little invasion from Squirrel Nutkin, who tried to get at my granola bars.

Don't worry, we just brushed away squirrel germs and divvied up the granola into our individual bags of trail mix we packed for lunch.

The boys, always itching for adventure, picked a 4 mile trail for us to hike that took us to Lake Angeles, a lake tucked in the mountains and only accessible by trails.

It was a beautiful hike, and we didn't spot another human our entire time.  The trail led us up a couple thousand feet and along silent, misty ridges.  Speaking of Twilight . . .

Towards the end, when I was wondering if the lake actually did exist, patches of sunlight began to filter through the trees.  It seemed so beautiful after a couple hours of the gray fog.  

We finally found the lake, or what we presumed to be the lake, as it was covered by a cloud.

Lake? Are you there?

We climbed onto a rock to eat our lunch and from our perch watched the fog roll in and out around the edges of the lake, occasionally revealing the opposite shore and a beautiful island of trees in the middle.  

 Does anyone want to go to Olympic National Park yet?

After lunch I was ready to take the much easier hike DOWN to our campsite, but the boys hadn't had enough yet and wanted to hike around the lake.  So Jess and I left them to their devices, grabbed the car keys, and headed out.  We all felt that if there was any time we might see a bear on our trip, this was going to be it, so Jess and I kept up a lively conversation the entire time in efforts to scare any bears out of our path.  At one point we were both stopped in our tracks by a low grumble . . . that turned out to be some distant machinery.  I think we picked up our pace after that.

Turns out we wouldn't have enjoyed the hike around the lake since the guys had to forge their own path, and at one point cross a "bridge" of fallen logs.

When we picked them up they were bedraggled and triumphant, but also tired, since  they ran the whole way down the mountain (supposedly shouting "GIRLS! GIRLS!" at intervals.  However, we were long gone.  Fools.)

After packing up camp, we drove east to Port Townsend, a charming little establishment at the tip of the peninsula.  After a disappointing survey of available campsites . . . we spent the night INSIDE!  Despite my jabs at camping and instructions to find me at the Holiday Inn Express, I wasn't the driving force behind our decision.  It was so nice to take a shower . . . and oddly the inn was the set for a few scenes from "An Officer and a Gentleman."  Not a bad view from the room, either!

If you like mountains . . .

After returning the bear cans and enjoying some more peanut butter and banana chip sandwiches, we hopped in the car and headed east along the coast towards Port Angeles.  I fell asleep and Matt took some unattractive pictures of me.  I woke up to us pulling over to see Canada!  As you can see from the map below, we took the yellow route along the Juan de Fuca Strait and then cut down towards Hurricane Ridge.



View Seattle 2010 in a larger map

Look, Jess, it's Canada!

Looking for Canucks.

We got in the car and continued driving until we hit a hippie art gallery with an "Espresso" sign out front.  We all got some hot drinks and smiled at the little girl who was following around the gallery's resident cat.  It was only after driving 15 minutes down the road that I realized I left my jacket on the couch and we had to head all the way back to retrieve it lest I freeze during the next couple days.  Sorry, everyone.

Despite my delay, we still made it to Hurricane Ridge before sunset.  We parked our stuff at a campsite below and then drove 12 miles up into the mountains.  What a view.

See, I told you she looked good a few days in!

Snow-capped peaks.

Flannel.

After walking to a nearby ridge, we came across this teenage boy deer:

And his teenage deer girlfriend:

Getting a little feisty.

While standing at this last ridge we overheard a guy on the phone talking about the "little black bear" he saw on a hike nearby.  Gulp.

That night we lived it up with some tasty vegetable foil packets and s'mores, camping at its finest.

Camping and Hiking

After our romantic and exciting ferry ride, we hopped in the car and drove west for several hours.  I fell asleep - I'm that fun.  When I woke up, we were approaching Ozette Lake, near the western shore of the peninsula.  I made this little old map to clarify our travels, and you can move the map and zoom in to see our first campsite, on the shores of the lake.

View Seattle 2010 in a larger map

We don't have any pictures to commemorate setting up the tents in the dark or trying unsuccessfully to start a fire with wet wood.  My prevailing memory is waking up to the sound of rain mercilessly pelting our tent.  Later, as Matt and I stood in the pouring rain, folding up the tent and tucking it away, I asked him if we were seriously going to sleep in this wet tent the following night.  He assured me that not only would we sleep in it, we would carry it on our backs to the next campsite.  

I could hardly contain my joy.

Here we are eating our breakfast of bratwurst.  The McDonalds bag housed all of our ketchup and salt packets . . . until it got wet and the bottom fell out.  I am sporting my $10 rain suit.  The rangers really thought I was tough with that on.  The rangers made us rent a BEAR CAN to store all of our food and other smelly stuff in - like toothpaste and deodorant.  That was comforting.


Then, we loaded up our packs, parked the car, and started hiking.  The trail was well established and either covered in gravel or wood planks the entire three miles.  This was necessary because the rain forest was so full of life and undergrowth that it would've covered the trail in no time otherwise.  For long stretches there was absolutely no opportunity to get off the trail, as the underbrush was so thick.  Every surface was covered with life - moss, algae, mushrooms, and whatever else grows in such a fashion.  It was beautiful and eerie, void of animals and even birds.

Fortunately the rain stopped soon after we started walking and we made the hike in uneventfully.  We reached our campsite for a lunch of peanut butter and banana chip sandwiches (somehow we forgot to pack jelly) and, as we were the only people there, had our pick of the sites.  We picked one sheltered by trees but with a beautiful view of the coast.

Matt learned in Kenya that a Masai blanket is essential to camping, and you can see ours drying from the tree above.  We were also attempting to dry out our tent, sans rain fly, until the wind lifted it up and threatened to toss it in the ocean.  First lesson of camping, "Stake your tent!", as yelled by Glenn as he chased our tent down the beach.


After staking our claim and setting up camp, we had to explore the beach.  The boys grabbed a net to catch some fish with (?!) and we headed down the sand.

Here, Glenn is whipping around a giant piece of seaweed and Matt is trying to jump over it.

Here the boys are chasing away the seagulls.  

The guys scampered out to the island and around its perimeter in search of fish in the tidepools.  Jess and I stopped by the sign that said "Do not climb on the island, it is sacred to the Ozette people."  We're respectful like that.  

This is a very flattering shot of me.  I look like Hobo Joe.

After our unsuccessful fishing trip, we were cold and wet.  Although it had stopped raining, the misty air combined with the wind blowing up water from the ocean meant that our pants were soaked through.  Matt and Glenn had gathered wood and set up a tarp earlier in the day, and they sat down to work on a fire.  

And work.

And work.

It began to look hopeless and I promise I sat there and prayed for 20 minutes that God would bless us with a bit of flame, because I was pretty sure that if I couldn't get warm, I'd be a goner.  

Halleluiah, finally, a fire!

The hardest-earned fire in the West.

We had couscous and hotdogs for dinner and slept peacefully.  Our bear cans were untouched in the morning.

The deer, however, were not dissuaded by our presence.  After slowly creeping up on a fawn and its mother, we realized that the deer didn't care one bit what we were doing.  

We packed up, said goodbye to Camp Alava, and somebody had the desire to hike three miles down the coast to another trail, and then hike three miles back through the rainforest.  We suited up and headed out.


There were fallen trees as far as we could see strewn across the beach, with piles of smelly seaweed preventing us from going around on one side, and the rising forest on the other.  It was over or under, and with giant backpacks on, our progress was slow.

After 100 yards, we turned around.


I wasn't complaining.

A bridge we crossed near the ranger station was covered in hairy moss.  I'm telling you, everything is alive out there!

Our trip back took less time than our trip out, and at the end was the reward of lunch, a dry car, and the returning of the bear cans.  Two nights down, and we were feeling pretty good.

ferry boats

I didn't really know where to begin with our trip, and it's getting kind of late and thus I don't want to spend a lot of time articulating our travels . . . quandary . . . but then I saw this series of shots and thought, why not?  A ferry ride deserves its own post.  

I don't remember being on a ferry of this size before.  I did ride one in Mombasa but it was slightly more . . . rickety, unsafe, smelly, unsavory, etc.  This big boat we took across the Puget Sound to get to the western peninsula of Washington.  Have you ever looked at a map of Seattle before?  There is water everywhere, and it's awesome.  

This ferry was our gateway to adventuring, our first taste of the great wilderness ahead of us.  We were fresh-faced, naive, excited, and most importantly - clean.  

Goodbye, Civilization!  Catch you on the flip side 

The ferry trip was a bit cold.  The wet Seattle weather combined with the gales blowing over the Sound . . . I was not excited about standing on deck.  We were the only people up there in the elements, besides one woman who paced the whole time, leading me to think she was a commuter trying to get some exercise during her ride home.  

This is when we decided Matt really needed a haircut. 

Our cast of characters: 

Glenn, our camping guide.  Former Eagle Scout and once biked across Asia, sleeping in monasteries.  

Matt, penchant for adventure, man of my dreams, rugged wearer of flannel.  

Jess, wife of Glenn, fellow abstainer from river water, and looked so cute 4 days in that I don't feel bad about putting this picture up now.  

And then there was me.  In my brother's words: Five days of camping with Erica!  Won't that be fun! 

Before we left we looked at the 3D map at the terrain ahead and our imaginations churned with possibilities.  

And then I accidentally followed Matt into the mens' bathroom.  

And so it began.