Well, this is probably the world’s slowest blog recap of a spring break road trip. (Here’s day 1, 2, and 3 of the west coast road trip Kelvin and I took.)
We spent two days and two nights in Olympic National Park. This was our second day in the park. We had spent the night camping in the car at the Mora campsite in Olympic because it was hailing and storming all night. Having visited Rialto and Second Beach the day before, we headed out to check out the rest of the beaches and a took a trip inland to hike around in the rain forests of Olympic.
In order to get to Third Beach, we had to hike out a few miles from the road. The sun came out for a little, and I loved the way the morning fog scattered the rays in the forest. When we finally got the Third Beach, the tide was rising and the logs on the coastline were really slippery, so I didn’t get any good pictures of the beach.
There is a native american reservation in the middle of Olympic National Park (just north of First Beach), and we drove through the small town to get a view of some sea stacks.
Kelvin and I drove inland to visit the Hoh Rain Forest. It was a drastic scene change from the coastline. Olympic National Park also has a mountainous area, which we weren’t able to visit because everything was snowed in.
The scenic drive towards the rain forest. Olympic National Park is divided into two parts, an inland rain forest and mountain area and a long stretch of Washington coastline. In between, the land isn’t protected. I was sad to see that there was a lot of land that had been logged and cleared.
In true rain forest fashion even the phone booths were covered with moss.
Our first hike was the Hall of Mosses loop.
I felt like we had gone back into the Jurassic period. The forests looked old and mysterious.
A photographer couple catching a photo of a moss covered tree in the rain.
I’m pretty sure I would be scared if I found myself in one of these forests alone at night.
Next, we went on the Spruce Nature Trail, another short loop. It was cool to see all these trees growing out of the fallen remains of another tree.
There were lots of interesting types of mosses.
More moss.
Kelvin!
Ruby Beach
Tide pools at Ruby Beach.
We spent a lot of time at Ruby Beach looking for sea life in the tide pools. I was excited when Kelvin pointed out this purple starfish.
Ruby Beach
Our view from the Kaloloch Campsite. Advantages of visiting Olympic in the off season are no crowds and a great pick of campsites.
Clean socks! We had been hiking around in wet shoes and socks all day, so it was a great relief to finally put on clean dry socks.
This is how we car camped. The HHR’s back seats folded down nicely to create room for us to put our sleeping pads and sleeping bags down.
