Olympic

Just returned from a short trip to The Olympic Peninsula and Victoria, BC. Our first stop was Olympic National Park near Port Angeles. We stayed in a rental property on Lake Sutherland which was quite close to a couple of entrances into the park, which is actually a gigantic old growth rain forest centered around Mt. Olympus. Lots of great hiking, although most of it was at between 5000 and 7000 ft so we were huffing & puffing pretty good by the time the day was over.

First outing was up to the Hurricane Ridge visitor center, where several hikes branched out and into the surrounding hills. This being the most easily accessed part of the park it's quite popular with families and day trippers looking for an easy outing in the hills. As per usual however, once you walk about a half mile along one of the trails you leave the crowd behind and pretty much have the place to yourself.

One of the nice features of the park is that the wildlife have gotten comfortable with human presence and so are not skittish at all. Not tame exactly but nearly so. Lots of ground squirrels, marmots and a herd of resident deer that seems to stay anchored near the parking area grazing on the grass that grows around the visitor center. It's not unusual to round a corner on a hike and find one or more looking back at you, grazing contentedly as you pass close by. Case in point being the photo above which was taken with no zoom on the camera - she really was that close. Later on the hike I noticed a buck coming towards us from up the trail so we stood fast so as not to startle him on the narrow ledge. After about 30 seconds he came upon us & didn't bat an eye...just diverted to the right along a section of pretty steep slope until he had passed us (no more than 10 feet away) then regained the trail behind us & continued on his way.



Was overcast in the morning, burning off later in the day to bright sunshine. We had to drive thru the clouds to get to the top...at about 5000 elevation.





After a couple of hours we topped out along a ridge in the hills where several trails meet. We sat on a rocky outcrop to have lunch and just rest a while before the long trip back. The photo above is the view to the north, down thru a pretty little valley that eventually finds its way to the sea, although the low cloud cover over the Straits of Juan de Fuca precluded a view of it that day.

As we sat there we were visited by a marmot who checked us out from the cover of some rocks, and then Rita saw something moving from right to left below us about 500 yards away. It was a Black bear, and it appeared to be heading to intercept one of the trails just below us which, had it turned up the trail as we expected, would have put it in our laps in just a few minutes. Rita was about to wet herself - preparing flee in terror if the bear had turned our way - and I was frankly looking around wondering how quickly we could evacuate, when the bear continued across the trail and proceeded to what appeared to us to be a nearly sheer cliff, which he proceeded to climb. We sat mesmerized for several minutes before remembering the camera so the picture is necessarily a distant & going-away shot but, trust me, he actually passed a lot closer than that.

Unlike the grizzlies of Montana & the Yellowstone area, the black bears around here are generally pretty harmless and not a threat to people, but seeing our first one while on foot made for a pulse-quickening few minutes in our day nevertheless.




The second day we drove up thru another park entrance, this time to Sol Duc hot springs, which is a mini resort in the mountains and which also has some neat trails up to distant waterfalls. It was a cool, drizzly day however so we cut the walking short and didn't take any photos.

Next up was Victoria and Vancouver Island in British Columbia.