Friday, September 03, 2010

Olympic trip-friday

The light slowly woke us and we could smell something like toast coming up the stairs. Time for breaky. Tremendous way to start the day, a cranberry and walnut scone followed by banana and coconut sorbet and then the fabulously decadent french toast which was infact a croissant filled with cream cheese drizzled with Marionberry jam served with bacon! We were well set up for the road.

It was nearly 10 by the time we got on the road heading to the coast, first stop lake quinault on the very southern edge of the park, it was fabulous heading along the tree lined roads catching glimpses here and there of the Olympics way in the distance, it was a gorgeous day with lots of blue sky and warmth, there were lots of crows and the occasional bigger bird circling over head.

We stopped into the national forest ranger station to get some tips and then at the general store for some snacks before seeing the worlds largest special tree, pretty large diameter, Soaz even did some climbing and posed for the camera half up the trunk!!

We were headed for the end of the road for a walk along the huge river, the scenery was super nice, lots of heavily wooded valley sides and most of the trees carrying large mossy beards! The river must have a massive energy in flood for the logs strewn about the gravel beds were plentiful and mostly full size trees, not just saplings, but today the river was pottering down quietly enough for a dipper to be enjoying lunch on the banks and in the current, we watched him and a juvenile perhaps at a road stop with sweeping views up to rocky peaks in the distance. S spotted a fine waterfall so we stopped and posed next to the park sign and admired the falls before finding the start of our chosen walk for the day.

Wolf bar camp spot was 2.5miles walk along the edge of the river, there was a little car parking spot where we changed and packed our cliff bars before sauntering along the little path, the trees were huge, towering above us, many covered in long wispy mossy fronds, nicely dry today, and difficult to imagine this place reportedly gets 12ft of rain a year, fingers crossed none this weekend please! It was a great walk, we saw a big green toad with a white stripe down its back, some large green slugs, lots of insects, some of which decided to eat us and even a little snake that disappeared quickly into the undergrowth!

It was a very nice walk and we went back towards lake quinault using the north road this time. We stopped at the National Park ranger station but they were closing. The lady gave us a few tips and we were on our way to see the trail. It was a very pleasant trail where we saw lots of moses.

It was then time to head to kalaloch our final stop of the day. We got there just fine and checked into our nice little log cabin which look like a norwegian cabin with a fire place. D made a nice fire for us and the cabin temperature increased by 10 degrees easily.

We had a fantastic dinner, made of baguette with chives and cream cheese topped with salmon and marion berry jam...soo good! Followed by alaskan salmon and halibut and the grand finale was a marion berry cobbler...such a tasty dinner! Now time to go to bed and rest for tomorrow's adventure.

No comments: