Olympic National Park - Hurricane Ridge - Lake Crescent

August 16, Friday

 

        Our flight left at 230PM and arrived in Seattle around 430PM.   We got our car and headed for Port Angeles (approx. 3 hour drive).   We stopped for a quick bite and traffic was busy at that time, we arrived in Port Angeles approx. 900PM.

 

August 17, Saturday

 

           We were up early, since we are still on Minnesota time.  Had breakfast at the hotel and then headed out to Olympic National Park.  We stopped at the visitor center and the park ranger suggested a hike along Hurricane Ridge.  The trail climbed 650 ft and was 1.6 miles into  the park.  It was quite steep in parts and wore me out, then we had to go down (my toes hurt).  The views were spectacular and we saw black-tail deer, marmot (similar to a ground hog, but the size of a raccoon.  The trail seemed like 3 miles one-way, so I was glad when we got back to the car.  We stopped at the picnic area and had some lunch and relaxed.

 

We moved on for a stop at Lake Crescent and a hike to Marymere Falls (1.5 miles roundtrip).  This trail was more flat, some stairs, but not too bad.   The trees were tall, like Redwood and they were completely covered with moss.  The sun doesn’t penetrate in, since the trees are so thick.  Back to Port Angeles for dinner and an evening of relaxation.  Tomorrow we take the ferry to Victoria!

 

 

 

Victoria, Vancouver Island

August 18, Sunday

 

 

 

.          We took the 815AM M.V. Coho ferry across from Port Angeles to Victoria (90 minutes).  We left our car in Port Angeles and traveled across.  Upon arriving in Victoria, we were able to see the Dragon Races, the Empress Hotel, the Government building.  It is quite a busy harbor and very different from Port Angeles.   We dropped our bags at the Marriott and went to get a quick bite to eat.  Next, we boarded our  double-decker bus for the Butchart’s gardens (12 miles out of Victoria or ½ hour drive).  The Butchart’s gardens were spectacular and we snapped numerous pictures to try to capture the scenery as best we could.  We learned the Butchart’s owned a cement business and quarried for limestone.  As they finished quarrying out the limestone, it left a big hole and Mrs. Butchart decided to fill the holes in with flowers because she thought it was too ugly the way it was.   The gardens are still owned and run by the Butchart family.

 

 

Things we learned about Victoria/Vancouver Island:

1)      The largest island in North/South America (350 miles long, 60 miles wide with 4,000 miles of shoreline

2)      Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and has a population of 350,000 (750,000 on the whole island, majority in the southern half.

3)      Victoria is the retirement capital of Canada – moderate winters/temperate summers

4)      1,800 flower baskets (1,200 sunny, 600 shady) that are scattered around Victoria and are watered nightly

5)      In each basket, 27 plants, 9 varieties (3 of each)

6)      We also saw the narrowest alley in the world (Fan Tan Alley), which is famous and used in movies frequently (.9 meters at the narrowest point

7)      Victoria is actually south of the 49^th parallel (which divides US/Canada)

8)      Over 700 islands

 

We had a wonderful dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory, back to the Marriott for a dip in the pool/hot tub and back out in the evening to capture some evening photos.

 

 

August 19, Monday

 

 

 

 

 

           At 900AM, we rented biked from The Peddler.  We toured Victoria around the harbor front and into various neighborhoods.  We stopped for pictures at the Craigdarroch Castle.      After completing our 2 hour bike ride, we headed back to the Marriott to check-out and then grabbed a quick bite to eat at the local pub. 

 Then we grabbed our bags and headed to the pier for our 300PM ferry back to Port Angeles.  We headed out for  Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort, arriving by 700PM with plenty of time to hit the hot springs.  They had a kiddie hot spring and 2 adult hot springs - one warmer than the other)  and a large swimming pool.  Our accommodations were cabins and they were really quite nice and roomy.

 

Olympic National Park - Sol Duc Hot Springs - Forks, WA

August 20, Tuesday

 

 

In the morning, we hiked 1 mile up to the Sol Duc Waterfalls (30 ft. waterfall).  Then we stopped at Salmon Cascade and were fortunate to see several salmon trying to jump upstream over falls.  Then we headed for Forks, Washington (known for the Twilight series), better yet we are staying at the Dew Drop Inn in the Belle Suite (decorated for Twilight fanatics).   Forks really embraces this Twilight connection with a Twilight Tour, as well as their radio station is called “Twilight”. We ate a quick lunch/ice cream cone and then headed out to Hoh River within the Olympic National Park.  This is the rain forest area of the park, toured the Moss Trail (.8) which covered information about the trees and hanging moss.  The trees were Douglas Fir (photo op at the largest Douglas Fir in North American – 550 years old and 300 ft. tall) and the Sitka Spruce.  Then we took the Spruce Tail (1.2 miles) that took us to the Hoh River.  Tonight we are heading to the ocean to see a fabulous sunset and the Sea Stacks at Rialto Beach.

 

Olympic National Park - Lake Quinault

August 21, Wednesday

 

The beach at Rialto was awesome.  We walked 1.5 miles down the beach to the Sea Stacks (rocks that are formed by the wind/waves).  The beach was quite rocky with black sand and the waves crashed in (not a swimming beach).  On the rocks, we saw Sea Anemones and numerous Starfish.  We didn’t quite plan to be hiking another 3 miles that evening, so when we got back to the hotel we crashed.  By the way, Rialto does not allow Vampires to their town…. 

 

Wednesday morning we headed out for Lake Quinault.  As we traveled, we stopped along the way at Ruby Beach.  The Washington coastline is rugged with downed trees lining the beaches and waves crashing in on the rocky shores.  We arrived at Lake Quinault around 1PM, so we decided to take the 30 minute loop around the lake.  We stopped to see the Largest Western Red Cedar (63.5’ circumference/174’ tall) and also the Larges Sitka Spruce (55’7” circumference, 191’ tall).  We checked into our Lakeside Suite and it was recently renovated and beautiful (overlooking the beautiful Lake Quinault).   In the afternoon, we hiked to see the Cascade falls.  Then time for relaxing in our adirondack chairs on the resort grounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 22, Thursday

Time to head home - 3 hour drive to the airport.  Along the way we collected pictures of the small drive-up coffee shops that we saw quite frequently throughout our trip.