Category: travel

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Staircase at Olympic National Park

Deep in the forest

It’s been a while since I blogged! So where do I begin again? Let’s start with an “How I spent my summer vacation!” essay. Here you go!

Our Hiking Vacation (with kids!) Begins

The treadmill and stair machine at the gym are no match for real life hiking. So although I’d been working out regularly, starting our hiking vacation at a place called “Staircase” was a little intimidating to my out-of-shape legs. Fortunately for me, Staircase is named after steps that have rotted away and no longer exist to torture untrained tourists’ quad muscles. The Staircase entrance to Olympic National Park is on the southeast side of the park, and it is less popular than the entrance by the Hoh Rainforest. However, the hiking is spectacular, and this old growth forest ended up being the perfect place to kick off our 12 days of exploring Washington.

Staircase Rapids Loop

The travel guide I was using during our trip said that this hike, the Rapids Loop Trail, was 4 miles, which was misleading. It was only about 2 miles, with mild elevation changes on the trail. The path was gorgeous, with huge, old moss covered trees and boulders. At the halfway point, hikers cross the river on a suspension bridge, which was built to replace a smaller bridge washed away by a flood. Although technically this is not a rainforest, I thought that the lush mosses that surrounded us were more beautiful than the mosses in the famous “Hall of Mosses” in the Hoh Rainforest. This is definitely a trail that should not be missed!

 

Hoodsport and the Hood Canal

We spent the night in Hoodsport at Glen Ayr Hotel and RV Park. The hotel owns a dock on the Hood Canal, where we sat for a little while that afternoon and saw a seal popping its head up out of the water. That evening, Emmy picked The Tides restaurant for dinner. She wanted to eat seafood, and assumed correctly that a place called “The Tides” would have some choices. The hotel also had a very nice hot tub in a separate building from the hotel rooms, which we took advantage of.  Hood Canal is popular with divers and as we sat outside our room, we watched three divers suit up in hotel parking lot. They went diving in the evening during high tide. The next morning during low tide, we went back out to the doce and walked on the rocky beach. A family was bringing crab traps up on the dock and showed us a rock crab they had caught.

 

Mount Walker and Rainbow Canyon

Our handy guidebook said that the view from Mount Walker is incredible, with views of Seattle and also Mount Rainier. As we were driving up Mount Walker, all we saw was a curious deer and more and more fog. By the time we arrived at the viewpoint, we could barely see the trees in front of us. So much for the incredible views! We had also planned on hiking the Rainbow Canyon Nature Trail, but we couldn’t find the trail head! Supposedly, it was at the back of a campground in the same area as Mount Walker, but there were no signs for a campground or the trail. We were persistent, however, and stopped by a Ranger station to search the map for the elusive trail. The map showed that the campground entrance was right across the street from the entrance to Mount Walker. We drove back and parked by a gravel road that had been blocked off. As we walked back into the forest, we could see campground sites that we hadn’t noticed before because they were completely overgrown. This was obviously a campground that wasn’t in use anymore. At the very back of the campground, just like the guidebook stated, we saw the trailhead sign.

The trail was very narrow and closed in. No one else was there, of course, since it was so hard to find! As we descended into the canyon, wet ferns brushed up against our legs, and we felt as though we were walking in a Jurassic era forest. The girls were a little freaked out by the quiet, dense trail. The youngest started to look quite anxiously  around the forest for mountain lions. That is the one thing we didn’t want to see!

Have you been to Olympic National Park? If you haven’t, add it to your vacation list!

 

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Where We Begin Our Summer Adventures

Summer! It’s so hard to believe that summer is almost over and the school year will begin soon. We have been traveling all over the country in our minivan, with lots of road trips adding miles to the odometer. Our first trip was out west, to visit my family in Des Moines, Iowa during Memorial Day weekend.

We have visited my family so often in Iowa that I thought we had done nearly everything near the Des Moines area. We’ve looked for bison at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Preserve, biked the High Trestle Trail, and walked along the Des Moines River in downtown Des Moines. Lily has fed the giraffes at Blank Park Zoo and we even took a paddle boat onto Gray’s Lake. And yet, when my dad mentioned visiting Ledges State Park, this was the first time I had even heard about it!

Our plan had been to go on Saturday, but unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with our plans and it rained almost all day. Sunday was a beautiful day and perfect hiking weather; unfortunately my dad had to preach that Sunday and my stepmom had to play the organ at church. (Let’s just say I’m looking forward to my 75 year old dad retiring soon!)  Since Ed, the girls and I had attended church Saturday evening, we headed up to Ledges on Sunday morning.

Part of the road leading to the park had been washed away by a storm, so along with other visitors to the park, we needed to park in the parking lot at the entrance and then hike down the road into the canyon. There is also a parking lot on the other side of the park for visitors who would rather not hike down into the canyon. The road down, however, was a short and easy hike, and while the road wasn’t safe for cars, it was very safe for walkers. When we reached the bottom of the canyon and saw the water from Pea’s Creek flowing intentionally over the path, the girls were ecstatic! They love wading in the water!

The creek curved around throughout the park, crossing the path several times. There were also a couple of nice bridges going over the creek and steps going up to trails on the top of the bluffs. With only 4 miles of hiking trails, the park is relatively small and easy to explore, especially with kids. I’ve been looking at the trail map while writing this post, however, and I see we missed a trail down to the Lost Lake. The trail head is is a different spot from the main trails, so perhaps that’s why it’s called “Lost Lake.” We certainly didn’t find it!

This arched stone bridge was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s.

After we hiked up and down the bluffs, we saw people wading up the creek and decided to do the same! We weren’t prepared for this part, however, and took off our shoes and socks. The creek had some sandy spots but was also rocky, so next time we’ll bring our water sandals! Hiking in the creek was really fun and showed us more of the bluffs from down below. Since this park is often flooded by the Des Moines River, however, it may not always be possible. The water was only up to our ankles when we were there in May.

Hiking up and down the bluffs was great practice for our next road trip to Acadia National Park in Maine. And it also made us hungry! We knew of a barbecue place in Ames that my stepmom had taken us to, but here was the challenge. We didn’t remember the name of the restaurant, and we didn’t know what street it was on. (And we don’t use our smart phones when we’re roaming!) But we figured, what’s the worst that could happen? So we drove to Ames and wandered around for a little while…and just as we were heading back to the highway, we found it! Hickory Park has great barbecue, and even more exciting to the girl, a candy counter! The candy ranges in price from a nickel to a quarter, so the girls had fun picking and choosing some candy for the road trip home.

Just a few weeks later, we got in our minivan again and headed East…to Maine!

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