Olympic National Park - Part 1 of 3

Tree of Life at Kalaloch Beach 

We have been wanting to explore the Olympic National Park for over a year. I sent away to AAA for information, I've combed the internet for blogs and pictures, I've gone to recreation.gov to check out campsites, I've found planetware.com-a "group of travel writers who offer their ideas on where to go, what to see, and tips for making the most of your trip", I found internet sites that rated campgrounds and posted pictures of individual sites, and talked to people who have been there. All that information just increased our desire to make the trip. So we decided that this was the year. We wanted to go after school started but before winter. So in September, the week after Labor Day, we decided to go.

Being the frugal people we are, we decided to go tent camping. Tent camping is something we do all the time so we were used to it; the only part of this trip that we really had to think about was the rain. The annual precipitation ranges from 100-170 inches of rain along the coast and western-facing valleys. That could amount to over 14 feet of rain a year! So we knew we would be dealing with rain, more rain than we were used to. In anticipation of all the wetness, we brought a few things to help us. We bought some nice containers to hold all our clothes, jackets, pillows, shoes, etc. this really helped to keep things dry-we usually use some canvas bags. We also bought a smaller version for food-we usually use a cardboard box. And for food we bought a big box of freeze dried food, figuring that with all the rain it would be easier to just boil water and eat something hot. It had enough food for our whole trip, we did supplement with some favorite things in our ice chest. We brought our pop up shelter, and a couple of tarps. Tarps, one for under the tent and an extra-turns out we needed the extra. We also brought lots of large garbage sacks for keeping the wet things and dry things separate. And of course, we brought all of our rain gear.

Camping in the Olympic National Park is interesting. There are only a few campgrounds that accept on-line reservations in the park. The Park is large, it is a large area in the middle of Washington and also has a beach area. Many people I talked to were surprised to learn that the Olympic National Park has a section of the Park that is by the ocean. We made reservations at 2 places, Kalaloch Beach and Sol Duc-the only 2 that took on-line reservations, everything else is first come-first served in the Park. Kalaloch was accepting on-line reservations thru 9/8/19, on 9/9/19 it became first come-first serve. So we made reservations for 9/8/19 and hoped we could stay in our spot for a few more days, since we were the first ones there. And it worked. Sol Duc was taking on-line reservations thru 10/29/19. So we got reservations for 9/11/19-9/13/19. The weekend was booked, so there was no possibility of staying longer, unless we got one of the walk in sites-and those were very few. We decided to leave the last few days of the trip up in the air. Most of the sites in the Park are first come-first served so we figured we'd find something, somewhere. I did research some of the campgrounds in the Park that were on the way home so we had some choices. Mr UAW has a senior National Park Pass and can get campground sites for half price, yay!

We left on a Sunday morning, traffic was great. It took us about 4 hours to get there. Set up camp and headed for the beach.

One of the things I wanted to see was something call the Tree of Life. If you google Kalaloch beach you will see a picture of it. It's a Sitka spruce tree that has apparently been there for ages, it sometimes has a creek that flows down the cliff and underneath it out to the ocean. The tree has a cave underneath it, the roots cling to the upper sides of cave while the trunk sags in the middle of the cave. The tree is not dead and it is amazing that it continues to live.

With the sunset behind me, you can clearly see inside the cave. 

We walked to the northern end of the beach. Along the way we found sooooo many whole sand dollars. We picked up some to take home and also saw some live ones. It's so interesting to see their little hairs move that help them to get around. Eventually we had to stop picking them up, I've never seen so many sand dollars in one place.

               
Towards the end of the beach there is a wonderful hole in the side of the cliff. It made a great opportunity for a picture.

Looking thru this hole makes me want to keep walking to the end of the beach. Turns out holes in cliffs and rocks are a big deal in the Olympic National Park. 

Rain coming. Destruction Island. Google Destruction Island for some interesting history !

That night we weathered our first major rain storm. The tent did fine, some drips under the pop up, but overall pretty good. We stayed 2 more days without rain so that gave us time to dry out.
And it made for some good sunsets the next day.

This was the sunset thru the trees as we walked back to our camp

On one of our walks towards the sound end of the beach we ran into these Arctic Terns. These birds are real athletes in the bird world. They have a long yearly migration. They travel from their Arctic breeding grounds to Antarctica where they enjoy the Antarctic summer, covering about 25,000 miles. I looked it up and found that they feed from the water while flying and can live up to 34 years! The average bird flys more than 1.25 million miles during its life-that's about three round trips to the moon!

Arctic Terns enjoying a few moments on the land

There seems to be a lot of drift wood on Washington's beaches. I noticed that the logs get larger the farther north I went. Look for pictures of bigger logs as the posts continue on the Olympic National Park. Many times we had to climb over the logs to get to the beach.

Most of these logs came up to my knees 

Practicing with my DSLR camera 

We used our camp at Kalaloch as a base camp to explore other areas of the Park. The second day there we went to Ruby Beach. It's called Ruby Beach because of the ruby colored rocks that used to be on the beach. Over the years all the ruby colored rocks have been picked up and the ocean doesn't seems to throw any more on the beach. This beach has wonderful sea stacks. Sea stacks are amazing vertical rock formations standing in the sea or close to the sea on the beach. They were formed by wind and water. The headlands used to go out farther into the ocean. The water and waves and wind creates cracks in the headland, causing the land to collapse and what is left is a steep vertical column or columns of rock in the sea. Many of them are large enough to have trees on them, like little islands. Others are just rock formations. Some have holes in them, a window into another view of the ocean. I took a lot of pictures of these things. They are so interesting.

On the path to Ruby Beach 

Sea Stacks 

This one looked like a gorilla to us 

Evidence we were there 

That small person is Mr UAW

That is enough pictures for one blog post! Except for this one-my tea bag from Good Earth tea. Little did I know how applicable this would be.

Part two coming up!

Willamette Falls Kayak Trip

I had heard about kayaking up to the base of Willamette Falls but never thought I'd actually do it. Willamette Falls is in Oregon City, one of the many cities surrounding Portland, Oregon, that is known as the end of the Oregon Trail. It is about 10 miles from my house. This is the description that Oregon.com gives to the falls: 

About the Willamette Falls: The Willamette Falls is a horseshoe-shaped block waterfall caused by a basalt shelf in the river bottom. The 42-foot-high and 1,500-foot-wide falls occurs 26 river miles upstream from the Willamette's confluence with the Columbia River. It's the largest waterfall by water volume in the Northwest and the 18th largest by volume. Around the falls are the locks, which are the oldest continuously operating multi-lift lock and canal system in the United States. Oregon.com

Surrounding the falls are derelict shells of old mills and factories, so that paddling up to the falls you have to pass by these old buildings. It's been described as a "zombie industrial land" by Jeremy Monroe, of Freshwaters Illustrated. And it's true. Hopefully someday that will all change. But for the purpose of this blog, I've focused on our river trip. You can Google Willamette Falls and Oregon City for more information. 

There are sturgeon, salmon and lamprey eels in this river and at the falls. As we were paddling up, a sturgeon jumped out of the river in front of Mr UAW's kayak, surprising us all. We also spotted an osprey that had caught a fish, he was flying around the river looking for a place to perch to eat his catch. And as I kayaked up to the base of the falls, I spotted salmon fins sticking out of the water. They quickly retreated into deeper waters. We didn't see any eels tho. 

We had some great tour guides, Denise and Norm. They were great and showed us the techniques to getting right up to the falls. We left at 11am. The weather was perfect, there was no wind, and it wasn't very busy with motor boats. This was a great time of the year to do this (end of August) because the water level was lower, the water was warmer, the weather was good. I wouldn't try this in the spring time or early summer, there would be too much water going down the falls for me. The whole trip took about 1:30. After we got off the river, we stopped to eat lunch and noticed that the motor boat activity had picked up. We counted at least 3 big tour boats going up the river, wowing their riders with quick spins and turns. There were also many jet skis. This was a trip that I would definetly do again. 

The river was so calm 

Bridge going into Oregon City 

    

This time of the year the falls look sectioned off, with their own little falls 

    

I'm in the orange kayak and Denise in the green one 

   

Proof we were there!

It's interesting to me to see bridges from the river view, I'm used to seeing them from the road. 

“It really looks like you’re paddling into is some kind of zombie industrial land.” —Jeremy Monroe, Freshwaters Illustrated

Cascade Head

In July we decided to go to Cascade Head. There are many hikes to go on there. We wanted to go on the Cascade Head Upper Trail and it is closed Jan 1-July 15 to protect wildlife so we went after July 15th. It's closed to protect some plants and some butterflies. This trail is 4.2 miles out and back with a net elevation gain is about 1,200 feet. And while we were there we wanted to go to Hart's Cove, another hike that was close by. This trail was 5.4 miles out and back with and net elevation gain of 900 feet. Both trails sounded so good but we didn't want to do both of them in the same day. So that lead to our first bed and breakfast stay in Lincoln City. We arrived at the trailhead for Cascade Head Upper Trail and had a great hike. It was everything that I had read about. The views were great and it was a nice hike-not too hard. We did take our trekking poles and we were glad we did. It's not very often we use them but they came in handy the last mile of this hike.



Cascade Head Upper Trail Pictures

Tree roots become steps on this trail 

Beautiful ferns and tree moss everywhere 

   

One of the stops on the way to the top gives you this view 

 

We made it to the top 

A herd of elk 

At the top

At the top 

 

Herd of elk on the way back down 

Beach in Lincoln City the first night we were there

   Our bed and breakfast accommodations were great. The proprietor was so friendly, she made us feel very welcome. Our room was wonderful and we had an ocean view. The food was wonderful. Every day the leftovers from breakfast are fed to the seagulls. They perch on the nearby roofs waiting for their treat. As you are eating, they are watching you. She gathers up the plates, they start to get excited. Before she throws out the food from the second story balcony, she asks her breakfast guests to stand at the window to watch the spectacle. This is the gulls last clue that their breakfast is coming. They make lots of noise and fly so close to the proprietor you would think they'd snatch the food from her hand. She tosses the food to the ground and it's a free for all. The Disney movie, Nemo, comes to mind...as it really sounds like they are all saying "mine, mine, mine...".


Next day on the beach at 5:30 in the morning. Yes, I'm an early bird.

The waves were great

    

The arrow was where we were the day before

Hike to Hart's Cove

More fern lined trials 

 

The cove. You could hear sea lions but couldn't see all of them 

Yes there was a waterfall there. Not very big because it was later in the year.  We did see a sea lion swimming in the cove. 

Next day we checked out of our bed and breakfast and spent the day on the beach. It was a windy day. We stayed for most of the day, ate an early dinner then headed back home.

Interesting tee pee on the beach 

Certainly is enough wood here to build lots of things

 

Surf was down, tide pools were interesting 

Not sure why this was here but it was cool. 

   It was a nice get away. It's hard to call it a vacation when you're retired. A get away or road trip sounds good. Anyway, more adventures are coming up. I'm a bit behind in my blogging.

Kayaking on the Willamette

Last month we decided to expand our kayaking destinations and decided to try the Willamette-where the Tualatin River flows into the Willamette. We needed to go upstream as downstream leads to Willamette Falls.  The falls are the largest waterfall in the NW United States by volume, not a good idea to go over it.

Our destination 

I read some reviews of other kayakers that made the trip and it sounded like we could do it. We were eager to explore the areas around the islands in the Willamette.

Our trip started out calm. I stuck to the banks of the Willamette. It is a big river, much bigger that I was used to kayaking.

The islands are up ahead and the water looks calmer between the islands and the banks of the Willamette.

The water was great and the area was beautiful.

However on the way back the wind picked up and it made the trip back longer. To reach our destination we were paddling upstream and it wasn't too bad. But this trip back-we were paddling against the wind so even tho we were going downstream, the going was long and the paddling was continuous. We need to remember to check the weather to see if it's going to be windy.

Anyway we made it back. There was calmer water where the Tualatin River flowed into the Willamette.

It's a trip that I would do again, after checking the weather. I hear that there are more places to explore going in this direction. I also read up on many people with our skill level that kayak downstream from the Willamette Falls-some of them paddle up to the Falls themselves. I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon but it would be fun the kayak the other side. Maybe a post for later.