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April 2001

Olympic National Park

David Aaronson
2005-09-25 16:05:41

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Arriving in Port Angeles just a couple hours before dusk, we hurried up the road to Hurricane Ridge to get an idea of what it looked like before nightfall. The road ascends from sea level (more or less) to an altitude of about 5000 ft (1600m) and a forest road extends farther up in the summer. About halfway to that altitude is this lookout. Unfortunately the cloud cover was rather low so we couldn't take photographs much higher than this (1). The water is the Juan de Fuca Strait and if it were clearer, the hook shaped sand bar known as Dungeness Spit would be visible on the right side of this photo.

Farther up it was snowing, windy, and the visibility became markedly worse. This view across a valley to some of the mountain peaks was taken through a partial break in the clouds (2). There is a visitor center at the top of the road, but due to worsening conditions and a lack of snow tires, we turned back before that point. We spent the night in Port Angeles which is a quiet (at least in April) town where most things close remarkably early and it's recommended that you like seafood. Actually, I had an excellent steak but there were very few menu choices available around town that didn't involve seafood.

The next morning we began a counter-clockwise progression around Olympic National Park. Most of the interior is not accessible by road, and those that do penetrate the park tend to be long, arduous offshoots that end at a trailhead or a visitor center. One exception to this is the trail to Marymere falls which leaves from just off US 101 in the northwest corner of the park. It's an easy hike to the falls, about 1/2 mile (1 km) each way. The falls are shown in this photo and the background of this page is a close up of the moss growing alongside the falls. The mist from the falls recondenses in the moss and trickles back down to the stream.

The bridge in the center of this picture is part ...