Hood Canal
So I've been exploring the Olympic National Forest over the past few months. I've spent quite a bit of time on the west side but for the past couple weekends I decided to stick to the Puget Sound side.
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Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Olympic Peninsula, it's a lush old growth rain forest that is reliably misty with a good network of trails.
So, I headed up 101 with a college buddy from Eau Claire (sans Jack The Dog). We looked around a few state parks and were pretty let down that they were so crowded (20-30 cars) around the trail-heads. So we just kept on heading up north until we got to a place to grab lunch, on the way we passed some kayaks and decided to go back and rent some boats from Hood Canal Adventure, it was a pretty good deal. The woman had a dog named Jake.
I spent last summer as a kayak guide in Door County and I was pretty excited to get back on the water. What I didn't expect was the seals, about a dozen of them. They stared at us for probably two hours but never got closer than 10 yards. Good day to be out on the water.
We found a campground down the way, got a good fire going, and grilled a couple dozen oysters that we found on the beach. ~Legal? Delicious, yup.~ We had some cool neighbors with a lion-witch-wardrobe tent, they had a dog named Jack! The next morning we headed south, got a bite to eat (pancakes) and headed towards Mt. Ellinor that I'd scouted out the weekend before. Mt. Ellinor has become a bit mroe popular since the road to "The Staircase" has been washed out, it's a few miles off 101, but you won't be disappointed. We were expecting a short 8 mile steep hike but what we weren't expecting was the last .6 miles with it 1600' climb called "the chute". I was curious why everyone we passed along the way had winter gear full on -ice picks, gators, and trekking poles: the answer was the chute. Sorry I didn't bring my camera for this gem all's I can do is recommend that if you head up bring extra lungs and legs.
So reaching the summit we hung out for a bit and got ready for the descent. Now, I'm used to boot skiing in Colorado but I've never seen the glacating. (Glacating is the outdoorsman term for "sliding down the mountain.") What a treat! you get going pretty good down that chute, fast enough where it can all go wrong pretty quick. Anyway it was a BLAST and worth the climb.
Stay tuned for the Paradise Ridge on Mt. Rainier report in a couple weeks
View Larger Map
Peace and Love - Jake
View Larger Map
Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Olympic Peninsula, it's a lush old growth rain forest that is reliably misty with a good network of trails.
So, I headed up 101 with a college buddy from Eau Claire (sans Jack The Dog). We looked around a few state parks and were pretty let down that they were so crowded (20-30 cars) around the trail-heads. So we just kept on heading up north until we got to a place to grab lunch, on the way we passed some kayaks and decided to go back and rent some boats from Hood Canal Adventure, it was a pretty good deal. The woman had a dog named Jake.
I spent last summer as a kayak guide in Door County and I was pretty excited to get back on the water. What I didn't expect was the seals, about a dozen of them. They stared at us for probably two hours but never got closer than 10 yards. Good day to be out on the water.
We found a campground down the way, got a good fire going, and grilled a couple dozen oysters that we found on the beach. ~Legal? Delicious, yup.~ We had some cool neighbors with a lion-witch-wardrobe tent, they had a dog named Jack! The next morning we headed south, got a bite to eat (pancakes) and headed towards Mt. Ellinor that I'd scouted out the weekend before. Mt. Ellinor has become a bit mroe popular since the road to "The Staircase" has been washed out, it's a few miles off 101, but you won't be disappointed. We were expecting a short 8 mile steep hike but what we weren't expecting was the last .6 miles with it 1600' climb called "the chute". I was curious why everyone we passed along the way had winter gear full on -ice picks, gators, and trekking poles: the answer was the chute. Sorry I didn't bring my camera for this gem all's I can do is recommend that if you head up bring extra lungs and legs.
So reaching the summit we hung out for a bit and got ready for the descent. Now, I'm used to boot skiing in Colorado but I've never seen the glacating. (Glacating is the outdoorsman term for "sliding down the mountain.") What a treat! you get going pretty good down that chute, fast enough where it can all go wrong pretty quick. Anyway it was a BLAST and worth the climb.
Stay tuned for the Paradise Ridge on Mt. Rainier report in a couple weeks
View Larger Map
Peace and Love - Jake
posted by Jake | 8:32 PM
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