We woke up-in the Rainforest(!) to another beautiful, sunny day. As our luck with weather would have it, we can go to the rainforest and not be rained on. We got ourselves packed up for the morning and at about 10 began the Hoh River Trail. This trail is about 17.5 miles, ending in Blue Glacier, next to Mount Olympus. We hiked about 5.5 miles into this trail, just enough to feel like we were entering the dense greens of the forest ferns rather than the short hikes closer to the Ranger Lodge.
Breaking into such enchanting territory solemned us as we enjoyed taking in our surroundings though other tour groups close by did not appreciate the quiet and natural sounds of the water, winds, birds, and squirrels. True to our "winging it" strategy/ADD, we also enjoyed breaking from the main trail onto smaller paths for extra opportunities to explore the riverbanks and waterfalls. This trail had two beautifully cascading waterfalls and though we attempted to get ourselves to the top of the falls for a changed perspective of below, we only got so far. Along the path we saw just how huge these spruce trees were! Fallen trees along the path, cut for the passing of tourists such as ourselves measured Anderson's height in diameter. We were always on the lookout for bears and elk but instead we ran into many small birds, squirrels, and colorful slugs. We enjoyed watching the friendly squirrels, who are smaller and darker colored than the furry rats on the East Coast, nibble pine ones on the forest floor. We spotted two woodpeckers scaling the trees, black with a red spot on the head of one, and saw much of their trace on trees along the path as well. Our animal sight seeing was finally satisfied when in a clearing by the crystalline blue waters we spotted a bald eagle!
We ended our journey just after Five Mile Island, and found a clearing by the river to sit and have lunch, PB&Js, apples, trail mix and lots of water. Our eyes were pealed for animals across the bank but still no elusive elk or bear spottings. The clearing where we stopped had reminents of previous fire pits. It would have been the perfect stop for backpacking the whole of the trail as it also had a privy and permanent bear bag rigging. Though we had plenty left in us after lunch, we decided we should head back if we were going to journey onwards during daylight hours. Seeing the deeps blue scaping of Mount Olympus high above us at our lunch spot, knowing it was on the same trail we were trekking, left us wanting more. We agreed that the next time we were in the Hoh we would backpack the trail till the end, which we estimated might be a 3-4 day trip.
The trail inward, with frequent stops and extra excursions took about 2.5 hours, and the hike back about 1.5. We tried to make sure we had all the photo opps we would need to capture the experience, though no picture could illustrate the surroundings to completeness.
When we made our way back to the visiter's center, Anderson was directed by the ranger to a coast campsite for the night at Second Beach. Though this was not in our original plan, winging it yet again proved to be predetermined destiny for our Olympic adventure! An hour later, after driving back through the few blocks of Forks yet again, we passed the vampires and entered "werewolf country." We parked at Second Beach, creatively loaded our necessities for the night in Anderson's legit backpacking backpack and Gwen's big day bag, we took the mile hike to the coast. As we descended the steep drop to the beach on the trail, through the trees we saw
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