So I have to start by saying how absolutely AMAZING this trip was! Wow! There are simply no words to describe the beautiful things that we saw and the incredible things that we did! It was like we took 2 different hikes in at least 8 different states/climates/landscapes and combined them into one hike! Everytime you turned a corner it felt like you were in a whole different place! We took a gazillion pictures and about 250 of them are in my Picasa Web Album. You can always click on one of the slideshows to the left to get to my Picasa site and from there you click on Janelle's Public Albums and then whichever album you want to look at. So go check out all of the pictures if you get a chance.
I have to put in a disclamer for some of these pictures! I did not bring my big camera on this trip for several reasons. One being the weight and another because I didn't want it to get dirty or get sand in it or banged around in the pack. I saw several people who packed in their nice cameras and tri-pods and all of their lenses and equipment and I would just drool knowing what kind of pictures they were going to have. But my mom and aunt both had really nice small cameras so I was dubbed the official carrier of the cameras and got to take the majority of the pictures on the hike. There was on day of constant crazy rain and the lens kept fogging up (especially in the tent when Diane and I were being "caterpillars" in our mummy bags and "gangsta hindu's" in our towel wrapped hair and beanies!). Also, we hiked for quite a ways very litterally in the clouds so those pictures look pretty hazy. Anyway. There's the disclamer!
So we started off by flying into Seattle and picking up our rental car. Then we drove 3 hours to Port Angeles where we ate lunch and picked up a few last minute supplies.
Then we checked in with the park rangers and gave them our itinerary and then drove another 30 minutes to the trail head. We put our packs on (starting weight for our packs was probably about 45 lbs - a little heavy but we were going to be gone for 9 days and didn't want to be short on food) and off we went! The landscape was so much different than I'm used to. It was SO so so lush and green and there were raindrops (perfectly round sparkling drops) on every leaf and fern. 
You couldn't see dirt anywhere but the trail in most places, it was like there was a carpet of green everywhere. It wasn't just moss either. They were individual plants just growing so close together that you couldn't see through them. In some places there were single green leaves growing out of the ground about 3 inches apart. Just a leaf on a 2 to 4 inch stem. It was so beautiful! 
and there were these little bridges everywhere! Some of them were made out of logs and some out of planks of wood and some of them were covered in moss and it was so gorgeous!
No matter where you were you could hear water running! Even if you weren't by a main river there were tiny streams running all over and it was just so peaceful! At some points you knew there was an enormous river raging just beside you and gorgeous waterfalls somewhere so close, but the trees and brush was so thick and lush that there was no way you could see it! It was this way for the first 3 days! Within the first hour of our hike we came to Sol Duc Falls and it was so amazing! There were a ton of people there taking pictures and it was super loud with the mist in your face beautiful kind of waterfall. The bridge to get over the falls was a fallen tree with log handrails bolted into it!
The next day it started raining as we were eating breakfast. We took down camp in the rain and then hiked in the rain... ALL DAY! It did not let up at all! We had on all of our rain gear so were dry underneath, but after about 8 hours it started coming through and we got soaked! It was so gorgeous though how the rain made all of the colors pop and the lush green seem even more lush if that was really even possible! At one point we had to cross a river because a bridge broke (luckily we were able to stay pretty much on some river rocks and not get our feet too wet. It got really cold as we got higher up the mountain and I was taking less and less pictures as the day went on (partly because I didn't want the camera to get soaked and partly because my fingers were getting really cold!). But I managed to get a few pictures of my favorite part of the hike. It was a huge meadow that we hiked through for several miles. And there were tons and tons of tiny little meandering streams running through the meadow all around you. And then every once in awhile you'd get some slate black rock by some of the streams and the contrast from lush green wildflower meadow was so cool! And this meadow was in a valley with huge mountains on all side of us and in front of us was a thin waterfall cascading down the face of the mountain that we were climbing. So so gorgeous! I decided this was my "sacred grove" where I would love to come to sit and pray and think... in a little bit warmer weather!
After hiking in the rain all day climbing in altitude and getting later into the evening we were quite uncomfortably cold to say the least. I started taking pictures in my mind because I just couldn't get my fingers to do it! By the time we reached camp that night we were SO cold! It took me a good 15 minutes to undo my button on my pants to use the bathroom because my fingers were numb! My aunt Diane and I shared a tent and after we got into our dry clothes we found ways to keep warm and entertain ourselves! I zipped myself into my mummy bag and pretended I was a caterpillar 
and Diane wrapped her wet hair in a towel and then put her "gangsta" beanie on top of that! 
(The camera lens was super foggy because it'd been wet and humid all day and then we took it out in our warmish tent.) That night all four of us huddled inside one tiny 2 man tent to eat our dinner. The place where we camped was at "Heart Lake" (a lake shaped just like a heart) 
and we had the most amazing campsite possible! We had trees on 3 sides of us (fabulous to block the biting cold wind) and then the 4th side opened wide up to a view of the entire gorgeous wildflower meadow valley that we'd just hiked through!
We were supposed to hike only a few miles to our "private lake" the next day but we were just too cold. We were above tree line and so we were not allowed to make a campfire and that was just so very sad! We were actually weighing the option of paying the fine and accepting the consequences of having a fire when we were not supposed to because we were just so stinking cold! We couldn't even imagine staying up in the cold fireless beauty one more night! So we decided to hike all the way down the mountain that night instead! We could see some lakes that were near our "private lake" as we passed and a few of them and bright blue ice rims around them... not very appealing! But even though there was snow on the ground at this point and we could see our breath there were wildflowers! Some growing right up through the snow! It was very beautiful but just not appealing enough without a fire and a nice down parka! Not to mention the fact that we were up so high that we were litterally walking in the clouds. We were supposed to be able to see the entire National Park from the "High Divide" where we hiked (the ridge line of the mountain) but the clouds were so thick that we couldn't see 10 feet in front of us at some points! So the views were not what we expexted either!
So we passed our turn off to our "private lake" without much remorse at all. It was Sunday and we wanted to have a "day of rest" but it would simply not have been restful! We decided to consider the freezing cold, no fire allowed, clothes and gear soaking wet, an "ox in the mire" and have Monday be our Sunday. On the way down the mountain we hiked over snow
Some of the snow was super scary because there was no trail on top of it and it was laying at the same angle as the mountain (that you were at the very top of!) and we had to just dig our feet in sideways to the snow so we didn't slide all the way down the mountain!
We went up to Bogashiel Peak (the highest point on that mountain) and met a Badger who was not at all shy! And saw a TON of gorgeous wildflowers! Here are a few of my favorites:
And then we came down to Hoh Lake that was the most amazing Turquoise Blue color! While we were admiring the lake we spotted a Mama bear and her 2 baby cubs accross the lake (luckily they didn't spot us!). We watched them for about 30 minutes and then continued on down the mountain.
And we also came to the infamous "blow down" area. Who has ever heard the term "Blow Down" before?! Well apparently the wind blew down thousands and thousands of trees on the side of the mountain that we were coming down and they had to haul in chainsaws and chop through to get to the trail! Sometimes (often) the trees and taken out a good portion of the trail so they just cut out a big chunk of switchbacks and made it one nice super steep and muddy slide for us! Nice! Well we were on super steep switchbacks for at least 5 hours and the last 4 hours or so in the dark with headlamps on! We had not planned on doing the whole thing in one day but we were determined to get down below tree line so we could make a nice cozy fire! When we finally stumbled (so very litterally) into camp around 1am we found that there were a TON of people camped there! Up to this point we had not camped near anyone. On our second night we could see another tent off in the distance but not close enough to bump into, so we were a little surprised. We spent the next hour looking for an open campsite since they were all spread over a wide area. We finally found a site and set up and went straight to bed with no dinner and no cozy fire. The next day we spent nursing our wounds! We all had blistered feet and a few of us had really sore knees from the long day of really steep downhill switchbacks. We bandaged our feet and took naps and washed our hair and all of our clothes (which were pretty stinky) and aired out all of our soaking wet gear from the day before. We looked like a hobo camp with our skivies hanging from ropes and trees!
I also have to post a picture of the "privy" (the bathroom) at this site. I think it was an improvement to digging holes in the dirt and squatting but I'm not quite sure. It was swarming with biting flies and had 1 inch gaps in the walls all the way around for ventilation - the scout troop camped right across from it loved that I'm sure!
Well now that we were down the mountain we were on the last stretch of this part of the hike and we were coming into the Hoh Rainforest portion of our hike. Which was so increadible! There were "pickle slugs" that's what I called them because they were not yellow banana slugs but were instead green with black spots on them. And tons of mushrooms and crazy fungus things growing on a bunch of the trees and moss EVERYWHERE! All different kinds of moss and it was just so cool! Here are a few pictures of the mossy trees
This last tree is kind of cool because it looks just like a regular tree until you look close at the trunk that is covered with moss.
We hiked the last 9 miles along the Hoh River and it was a slate gray color because of what they called Glacier Flour.
And along the ground there were enormous clovers! The closer to the tree trunk the bigger they were! 
I looked so hard for a huge 4 leaf clover but didn't find one! At this point I'd already been dreaming about Peter and the kids every night and I was pretty pathetic in my missing them! I wanted to find a 4 leaf clover for Peter to tell him how "lucky" I felt to have him. Cheesy I know but I missed him so much! It was SOOOOO good to come home and be with him again! I feel like I've fallen in love with him all over again. Being away from him for 10 days made me realize that I don't want to live one day of my life without him!
Alright, so that was too cheesy of a note to end on, so I'll wrap up our rainforest section real quick. We camped at Big Tom's Creek our last night in the rainforest and it was so pretty! It was like a little forest all it's own with it's own meadows and streams and everything! When my mom and I went out to filter water the next morning the clouds settled in patches onto the mountain in front of us and it just looked so cool! Pictures just don't do it justice.
Then we hiked out to the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center where I called Peter on a payphone and we sat on a cushioned couch and went on a guided tour of the hall of mosses while we waited for our shuttle to take us to the coast for the second half of our adventure! This was such a general overview of this half of our trip! There is just no way to capture it all. And this is a tiny portion of the pictures that are in my album (click on the slideshow to the left to see more pictures). But this post is still way too huge and I'm way too tired to finish the beach portion of the hike right now so I'll do it tomorrow!
So we started off by flying into Seattle and picking up our rental car. Then we drove 3 hours to Port Angeles where we ate lunch and picked up a few last minute supplies.
Then we checked in with the park rangers and gave them our itinerary and then drove another 30 minutes to the trail head. We put our packs on (starting weight for our packs was probably about 45 lbs - a little heavy but we were going to be gone for 9 days and didn't want to be short on food) and off we went! The landscape was so much different than I'm used to. It was SO so so lush and green and there were raindrops (perfectly round sparkling drops) on every leaf and fern. 
You couldn't see dirt anywhere but the trail in most places, it was like there was a carpet of green everywhere. It wasn't just moss either. They were individual plants just growing so close together that you couldn't see through them. In some places there were single green leaves growing out of the ground about 3 inches apart. Just a leaf on a 2 to 4 inch stem. It was so beautiful! 
and there were these little bridges everywhere! Some of them were made out of logs and some out of planks of wood and some of them were covered in moss and it was so gorgeous!
No matter where you were you could hear water running! Even if you weren't by a main river there were tiny streams running all over and it was just so peaceful! At some points you knew there was an enormous river raging just beside you and gorgeous waterfalls somewhere so close, but the trees and brush was so thick and lush that there was no way you could see it! It was this way for the first 3 days! Within the first hour of our hike we came to Sol Duc Falls and it was so amazing! There were a ton of people there taking pictures and it was super loud with the mist in your face beautiful kind of waterfall. The bridge to get over the falls was a fallen tree with log handrails bolted into it!
The next day it started raining as we were eating breakfast. We took down camp in the rain and then hiked in the rain... ALL DAY! It did not let up at all! We had on all of our rain gear so were dry underneath, but after about 8 hours it started coming through and we got soaked! It was so gorgeous though how the rain made all of the colors pop and the lush green seem even more lush if that was really even possible! At one point we had to cross a river because a bridge broke (luckily we were able to stay pretty much on some river rocks and not get our feet too wet. It got really cold as we got higher up the mountain and I was taking less and less pictures as the day went on (partly because I didn't want the camera to get soaked and partly because my fingers were getting really cold!). But I managed to get a few pictures of my favorite part of the hike. It was a huge meadow that we hiked through for several miles. And there were tons and tons of tiny little meandering streams running through the meadow all around you. And then every once in awhile you'd get some slate black rock by some of the streams and the contrast from lush green wildflower meadow was so cool! And this meadow was in a valley with huge mountains on all side of us and in front of us was a thin waterfall cascading down the face of the mountain that we were climbing. So so gorgeous! I decided this was my "sacred grove" where I would love to come to sit and pray and think... in a little bit warmer weather!
After hiking in the rain all day climbing in altitude and getting later into the evening we were quite uncomfortably cold to say the least. I started taking pictures in my mind because I just couldn't get my fingers to do it! By the time we reached camp that night we were SO cold! It took me a good 15 minutes to undo my button on my pants to use the bathroom because my fingers were numb! My aunt Diane and I shared a tent and after we got into our dry clothes we found ways to keep warm and entertain ourselves! I zipped myself into my mummy bag and pretended I was a caterpillar 
and Diane wrapped her wet hair in a towel and then put her "gangsta" beanie on top of that! 
(The camera lens was super foggy because it'd been wet and humid all day and then we took it out in our warmish tent.) That night all four of us huddled inside one tiny 2 man tent to eat our dinner. The place where we camped was at "Heart Lake" (a lake shaped just like a heart) 
and we had the most amazing campsite possible! We had trees on 3 sides of us (fabulous to block the biting cold wind) and then the 4th side opened wide up to a view of the entire gorgeous wildflower meadow valley that we'd just hiked through!We were supposed to hike only a few miles to our "private lake" the next day but we were just too cold. We were above tree line and so we were not allowed to make a campfire and that was just so very sad! We were actually weighing the option of paying the fine and accepting the consequences of having a fire when we were not supposed to because we were just so stinking cold! We couldn't even imagine staying up in the cold fireless beauty one more night! So we decided to hike all the way down the mountain that night instead! We could see some lakes that were near our "private lake" as we passed and a few of them and bright blue ice rims around them... not very appealing! But even though there was snow on the ground at this point and we could see our breath there were wildflowers! Some growing right up through the snow! It was very beautiful but just not appealing enough without a fire and a nice down parka! Not to mention the fact that we were up so high that we were litterally walking in the clouds. We were supposed to be able to see the entire National Park from the "High Divide" where we hiked (the ridge line of the mountain) but the clouds were so thick that we couldn't see 10 feet in front of us at some points! So the views were not what we expexted either!
So we passed our turn off to our "private lake" without much remorse at all. It was Sunday and we wanted to have a "day of rest" but it would simply not have been restful! We decided to consider the freezing cold, no fire allowed, clothes and gear soaking wet, an "ox in the mire" and have Monday be our Sunday. On the way down the mountain we hiked over snow
Some of the snow was super scary because there was no trail on top of it and it was laying at the same angle as the mountain (that you were at the very top of!) and we had to just dig our feet in sideways to the snow so we didn't slide all the way down the mountain!
We went up to Bogashiel Peak (the highest point on that mountain) and met a Badger who was not at all shy! And saw a TON of gorgeous wildflowers! Here are a few of my favorites:
And then we came down to Hoh Lake that was the most amazing Turquoise Blue color! While we were admiring the lake we spotted a Mama bear and her 2 baby cubs accross the lake (luckily they didn't spot us!). We watched them for about 30 minutes and then continued on down the mountain.
And we also came to the infamous "blow down" area. Who has ever heard the term "Blow Down" before?! Well apparently the wind blew down thousands and thousands of trees on the side of the mountain that we were coming down and they had to haul in chainsaws and chop through to get to the trail! Sometimes (often) the trees and taken out a good portion of the trail so they just cut out a big chunk of switchbacks and made it one nice super steep and muddy slide for us! Nice! Well we were on super steep switchbacks for at least 5 hours and the last 4 hours or so in the dark with headlamps on! We had not planned on doing the whole thing in one day but we were determined to get down below tree line so we could make a nice cozy fire! When we finally stumbled (so very litterally) into camp around 1am we found that there were a TON of people camped there! Up to this point we had not camped near anyone. On our second night we could see another tent off in the distance but not close enough to bump into, so we were a little surprised. We spent the next hour looking for an open campsite since they were all spread over a wide area. We finally found a site and set up and went straight to bed with no dinner and no cozy fire. The next day we spent nursing our wounds! We all had blistered feet and a few of us had really sore knees from the long day of really steep downhill switchbacks. We bandaged our feet and took naps and washed our hair and all of our clothes (which were pretty stinky) and aired out all of our soaking wet gear from the day before. We looked like a hobo camp with our skivies hanging from ropes and trees!
I also have to post a picture of the "privy" (the bathroom) at this site. I think it was an improvement to digging holes in the dirt and squatting but I'm not quite sure. It was swarming with biting flies and had 1 inch gaps in the walls all the way around for ventilation - the scout troop camped right across from it loved that I'm sure!
Well now that we were down the mountain we were on the last stretch of this part of the hike and we were coming into the Hoh Rainforest portion of our hike. Which was so increadible! There were "pickle slugs" that's what I called them because they were not yellow banana slugs but were instead green with black spots on them. And tons of mushrooms and crazy fungus things growing on a bunch of the trees and moss EVERYWHERE! All different kinds of moss and it was just so cool! Here are a few pictures of the mossy trees
This last tree is kind of cool because it looks just like a regular tree until you look close at the trunk that is covered with moss.
We hiked the last 9 miles along the Hoh River and it was a slate gray color because of what they called Glacier Flour.
And along the ground there were enormous clovers! The closer to the tree trunk the bigger they were! 
I looked so hard for a huge 4 leaf clover but didn't find one! At this point I'd already been dreaming about Peter and the kids every night and I was pretty pathetic in my missing them! I wanted to find a 4 leaf clover for Peter to tell him how "lucky" I felt to have him. Cheesy I know but I missed him so much! It was SOOOOO good to come home and be with him again! I feel like I've fallen in love with him all over again. Being away from him for 10 days made me realize that I don't want to live one day of my life without him!Alright, so that was too cheesy of a note to end on, so I'll wrap up our rainforest section real quick. We camped at Big Tom's Creek our last night in the rainforest and it was so pretty! It was like a little forest all it's own with it's own meadows and streams and everything! When my mom and I went out to filter water the next morning the clouds settled in patches onto the mountain in front of us and it just looked so cool! Pictures just don't do it justice.
Then we hiked out to the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center where I called Peter on a payphone and we sat on a cushioned couch and went on a guided tour of the hall of mosses while we waited for our shuttle to take us to the coast for the second half of our adventure! This was such a general overview of this half of our trip! There is just no way to capture it all. And this is a tiny portion of the pictures that are in my album (click on the slideshow to the left to see more pictures). But this post is still way too huge and I'm way too tired to finish the beach portion of the hike right now so I'll do it tomorrow!
6 comments:
I'm just jealous and that is all I have to say about that! What beautiful pictues. I am glad you guys had such a great time.
Mom told us all about it on Sunday. Sounds like it was amazing! The pictures are beautiful!
Those pictures are beautiful, what a fun trip! My maiden name is Butterfield I think My brother leaves for Fresno in October
Wow, Kings Canyon hikes are going to look ugly if I compare them to this!
Ok Janelle, football camp was NOTHING compared to this! I think your are wonder woman! What an amazing trip. Thank you so much for sharing some of your thoughts and beautiful pictures. It's so nice to read. I LOVED the pickle slugs!! Let me know a good Friday or Saturday night for you guys, maybe we can go to that Liberty Land or something.
Love
Dawn
Holy cow Janelle! I'm glad I got to read all about your trip, but not actually have to do it myself. Looks amazing, and I'm jealous you got to see the "Twilight" scenery! Love the books!
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