Olympic backpacking - Sol Duc loop

The next phase of our Olympic National Park exploration was a series of outings with our favorite backpacking buddies - Cathy and Robyn!

We conjured up the idea of seeing several diverse areas of the park, using online suggestions of cool places.  The Sol Duc loop sounded most familiar, climbing up to high ridges for scenic views.  That was our permit quest priority, and we were able to secure a spot for a couple nights.

So we met up in Port Angeles for laundry and food supplies, then drove up to Sol Duc campground for an evening of gear sorting and food organizing.

Then we were ready to check out Sol Duc Falls (pretty!) and get our first foray underway:

We quickly discovered the main driver of our walking speed (or lack of speed) = huckleberries!  We all love huckleberries and they were everywhere along the path.  Not sure why we brought food with us when these are here for the picking:

The flowers were colorful and lovely, but inedible, so we hiked upward into the fog:

Tree sculptures, I'm assuming from the weight of winter snow:

In lieu of views through the ever-present fog, we spent extra time picking berries:

Close-up views were sometimes especially interesting, like these flowers:

And of course:

Some curious geology - I wonder what happened up here (where's Roper when you need him?)

New addition to the "Beard" family:

Dr. Seuss plants (flowers?)!  All they needed was a pair of eyes:

Grouse crossing:

I'm sure on a clear day this is a gorgeous view of the Seven Lakes Basin:

Instead we'll amuse ourselves looking at pretty flowers (and eating more huckleberries, I'm sure):

Robyn is growing wiser:

Close to finishing up our hike for the day:

We found our destination (Heart Lake) along with a bunch of tents scattered about the designated sites.  Apparently some trail work people had taken over, so we had to squeeze ourselves into a spot on the tundra (not ideal, so we moved to a more durable surface when a group left the next morning).

After setting up camp and eating supper, the fog actually started to clear!  John and I went uphill for a look at the last rays of sunshine and our lake home for the next 2 nights:

Day 1 haiku:

Fog, fog, and more fog

Oodles of huckleberries!

Heart Lake is crowded

The next day we were free to roam around and explore the area.  Happily the clouds were no longer at our level, but instead settled down in the valley way below.

It was awesome to see the mountains!  Mount Olympus had a cloudy top but its glaciers poked out below it.  Robyn is taking a picture, while John's trekking pole is pointing at her head for some reason?

Robyn's excellent photo:

And a selfie for good measure, because we finally have a view!

I like the colors and the shading of the hills across the way:

I also like huckleberries  :)

I bought this at the co-op because it reminded me of pika poop... I think it was chocolate-covered quinoa or something similar, and it was yummy:

What do you think, could this pass as pika droppings?

Continuing our wanderings in the afternoon, as the views are still good, while the clouds are getting a bit higher and closer:

Big bear poop (the genuine thing this time):

We went back to the ridge about the Seven Lakes Basin, but for some reason I don't have a photo of it.  I guess Mount Olympus was stunning enough.

Yay for day hiking!

There's plenty of moisture around (even when it hasn't been raining a lot) for moss to grow on trees:

Day 2:

Views of Olympus

Finally saw Seven Lakes

More huckleberries  :)

The next morning we packed up early and waved goodbye to Heart Lake:

Continuing the loop as it heads down into the next valley:

Returning to the forest:

This is a cool little bridge (thank you for getting a picture, John):

Even more work went into this one:

John makes his own bridges, except...

Nope, not finding a way down, gotta go back:

Very cartoonish mushroom!

Thank you, Sol Duc, that was a wonderful start to the week!

Day 3 will be continued in the next post

Photo credits include John, Robyn, and Cathy

ONP with Kathy and Bob (part 2)

Back to the beach on another lovely day in Olympic National Park:

We were looking for the Tree of Life on Kalaloch beach - and there it is!  Hard to imagine how it got this way, also how it's still quite alive (possibly why it's named as such):

An impressive tree, to be sure!

The first "heart" we would come across in ONP, also one of the prettiest:

Just across the 101 and the world changed completely:

Bulbous tree trunk:

View of the ocean from Kalaloch Lodge (where we had an excellent lunch):

Just a bit further north we went down one of several trails that drop back to the beach, with an opportunity for more tide pool and starfish viewing:

Interestingly-shaped rocks at the water's edge, reminds me of Maui (just in different colors):

Ocean pose:

The tide was rapidly coming in that afternoon.  A couple people had walked on dry sand to this little hill, and not long later it was an island.  The guy gets points for carrying the woman across the water back to her sandals:

This tree didn't fare as well with beach erosion as the Tree of Life has (so far):

The gray angled layer is called Bobstone:

Back across the road to the forest and the Big Cedar Nature Trail, where I tested the "panorama" function on my phone amid the giant trees with reasonable success:

Whatever is going on here??

One more time back to the beach.  This one is called Ruby Beach, although we didn't see any particular reason for the name:

And that's as high as she goes:

I can see why they filmed a vampire show in this area:

Karate Kid pose:

We had heard about long wait times to get to the Hoh Rain Forest, so we waited until the end of the day to drive in and that worked really well.  With a lack of recent rain it was relatively dry for a rain forest, but it was still a wonderful place to take a walk and admire the dense vegetation:

My favorite sign in the park:

It's not obvious in this picture (because there is so much greenery) that the large dead tree is hosting a bunch of little new trees growing up out of its mossy surface:

A better/larger example - biggest root stalk I've ever seen, with normal-size trees growing on top of it:

John gave us a "stump speech" (his joke not mine) - I'd vote for him!

On our final exploration day with Kathy and Bob :( we drove over to Cape Flattery and apparently all these tall trees has made us smaller:

Bob had been searching for a big yellow slug (we had been promised oodles of them but apparently it wasn't wet enough lately) and he finally found one, yay!  Bob, you just had to wear the yellow shirt for them to recognize you:

The trail down to the cape has amazing views:

We are fans of this hike - it's worth the effort to get here:

Beautiful shoreline in the foreground and Canada on the horizon:

Random marine sculpture as we were driving around:

Our excellent AirBnB, our wonderful travel buddies and roommates, and so much gratitude for these days we spent together!

Photo credits include John, Kathy, and Bob