I came back up to Washington from the Northwest Nomads gathering in Oregon, because I didn’t want to miss the Olympic Peninsula. Sue and Dave joined me and we spent several days camping and exploring. This part of the trip was bound to be nostalgic because of the time I spent here with Sharon in 1985. They were very gracious as I said ‘we stayed here’ and ‘we did that trail’, etc.
Sharon had traveled for three months in Europe with Sue the year before she met me (Budget: $10 a day!). We had been dating a year when Sue and Dave got married. We came out to Seattle for the wedding and stayed for two weeks backpacking in the Olympic National Park and doing the drive from Glacier National Park to Banff and Jasper.
I have so many memories of our time backpacking in “The Olympics”. Here they are.
Sue dropped us off and we took the Whidbey Island Ferry to the peninsula. We hitchhiked to the first trailhead, a long walk on a boardwalk to the beach at the top of the west coast. We hiked along the beach for three days. Hiking with backpacks in the sand is not easy. Sharon had never backpacked before, and I had done all the planning. Very soon it became apparent she was not up for carrying any extra gear and before long was down to just her clothes and her sleeping bag. This was the first time she called me “My hero!” And I couldn’t be more proud or willing to be the pack rat. We trudged along the incredibly beautiful, rugged coast. Mostly it was just us and the pounding surf, but two days in, a couple passed us and told us they had left three beers around the point, but if we wanted them we had to walk fast because you can’t walk around the point once the tide comes in. We walked as fast as we could, but alas, the tide was already at the rocks when we reached the point. We made camp far enough up the beach (we thought) and I surveyed the point. The the shrubbery was thick, the terrain steep, but I decided I could make it over the top. I bushwhacked my way to the beers and brought them triumphantly back. Second time; “My hero!”
That night the surf was especially rough, and it definitely sounded like it was coming closer. Should we get out and move the tent? Neither of us wanted to get out of our sleeping bags. We decided to hope for the best, and we didn’t get wet, but we also didn’t get much sleep.
The next day we left the beach and went into Forks and booked a hotel. Aside from a wonderful but private memory, the only thing I remember about Forks was that the pancakes were so big at the restaurant they were hanging over the plate.
We then hitched a ride in a red pickup to the Hoh Rain Forest. The plan was to hike to the Blue Glacier, over the pass and come down to the East side of the peninsula and back on the ferry. The pickup dropped us off, and two seconds later Sharon said, “My camera! I left it in the pickup!” She loved that camera, and had used it for years when she was the photographer for the Living Stage Company in DC, going into maximum security prisons and documenting dramatic theater improv with the prisoners. She wanted that camera back. We talked to a ranger.
“ Do you know someone who lives around here with a red pickup?”
“What did they look like?”
“Kind of Native American guy”
“Why yes I do. Let’s go pay him a visit.”
We hopped in the ranger’s car and went to the guy’s home. When the door opened and he saw the ranger, the official car and us, he was not smiling. But the ranger explained what had happened, and, still not smiling, he returned the camera. Reunited!
We loved the Hoh rainforest. It was my first time seeing old growth forest like this and it was magical. Sharon and I took a particular liking to the plentiful banana slugs, and we started impersonating them; contorting our faces ever so slowly and then cracking up. It remained a parlor trick we’d bring out over the years when the conversation warranted.
Also at this leg of the trip, we somehow fell into alter egos; an old married couple named Ernie and Harriet. We had special ‘old people’ accents, and told each other stories we made up about life on the farm. It was glorious.
We stuck to the plan and got to the Blue Glacier. (I didn't see it on this trip because it’s an 8 hour hike in, too much for a day hike. Back then we were permitted to actually walk on the glacier, and all we were told was, “Watch out for the crevasses.”)
We continued on to the pass, well above tree level. That night was very cold, and very wet. The next morning I tried to boil water for oatmeal, but with the temp and elevation it was barely lukewarm after 20 minutes. It was then that we came up with a new kind of motivating energy, called “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” energy. Very useful. We stuffed our wet stuff in the pack and got the fuck out of there. On the way down we saw a brilliant double rainbow. We kept hiking and came upon some unofficial hot springs. Other people were there, too. We warmed our frigid selves, made new friends, and they offered to take us back to the ferry.
And those are my memories of our trip in the Olympic National Park in 1985.
Actually I'm realizing many of these pics must be from Banff to Jasper, not the Olympic range. But I won't get there till next summer so you might as well enjoy them now! Thanks to Tyler, Virginia, Bianca and Paul for working together to get these to me!
I'm writing from Cape Disappointment, Where Lewis and Clark finally saw the Pacific Ocean. I went to the Lewis and Clark museum here, and I'm reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose about the expedition. Just unbelievable. I'm enjoying creature comforts, and grocery stores, and roads, and my tiny house on wheels…