Olympic Hot Springs, Boulder River, Appleton Pass

This past year has been so crazy and filled with awesome adventures!! Although, it’s been a while since I’ve had a good trip outside, since September actually. A coastal trip from Shi Shi to Ozette proceeded by a couple weeks road tripping and visiting Yosemite, Zion and Yellowstone were my last big adventures. Well, here I am trying to get my blogging-ness back!

11/21/14-11/23/14

This weekend my adventure buddy and I braved the cold rain and headed out towards the Olympic Hot Springs. The road to the trail head has been open just about a week now, and you can see they have done an abundance of trail work to clean it up. We had visited the springs a couple times this past year and it was scattered with downed trees. Starting just after 4:00 pm on Friday we ended up at Boulder River camp, 2.5 from the TH, in the dark where we spend the first night. We packed in a ton of yarn and spent the evening dry in the tent making beanies!

Saturday morning we head up towards the snow covered Appleton Pass. Took a couple short side trips to see the lower and upper Boulder River Falls. As the trail comes up to the Boulder River crossing (without the bridge) the river literally takes over the trail. I’m not talking about just a wet trail, the river is flowing down the trail, likely compliments of washouts and dammed up debris after the trail has been mostly unused for the past couple years.

The snow has started covering the ground by now and increased the farther we went. Shortly after the 3500’ sign stating no fires the trail opened up and we basked in the glory of Appleton Pass. By now we had noticed that there were little to no trail markings for snow travel, and with an unmaintained trail the past couple years and expected fresh foot of snow that night we decided to turn around and camp back at the Lower Falls. We were prepared for snow camping but didn’t want to risk getting turned around on our way home Sunday since we wanted to get out in time to soak in the springs!

There is a nice little spot by the Lower Falls we camped at, and woke up to a spotty new dusting of snow. Packed up and heading back towards the springs by 11 we crossed paths with another couple heading up to the pass towards the Sol Duc Hot Springs. I hope they made it! We got to the Olympic Hot Springs and headed to the pool we know as the best. There were already a few people enjoying it, so instead of squeezing in we decided to opt out of a nice soak. I think it was the second best decision we made for the weekend, as we left we counted 15 more people heading in to the springs. It was going to be a crowded time! Of course it was to be expected with the road finally being open, so one can’t be too bummed.

11 cars and a motor home back at the TH, this place must get busy!!! It was a great weekend out in the rain with the best adventure buddy a person could ask for, much overdue.

Olympic Hot Springs 2.5 miles

Boulder River

Appleton Pass

Lazy trip reporter right here! ;)

Why do I always stop blogging when I'm having so many blog worthy times!? In the past few months I have been getting outside as often as I can, unfortunately I haven't been writing any trip reports. What gives!? It's hard to sit at a computer when I can play instead! Just had a fun-filled spring break complete with adventures every day of it! Hopefully I can whip up a little recap soon and share some pics and trail conditions!
Keep on exploring!

Here's a couple from yesterdays walk up Green Mt (Kitsap Peninsula) with Jas, we like to stretch our legs up there when in town to visit family and friends!

 

5 miles RT via Gold Creek trail head up the seconds tallest peak on the peninsula, it's a fairly easy hike with only 1000' gain. Great views of Kitsap, Seattle, and mt ranges from both sides on a clear day, I saw lots of fog this time! Still haven't ran into any motorbikes, but I hear them out there often as they are now allowed on the Gold Creek side. :/



Coastal Adventures - La Push to Ozette

     

During winter break I had the opportunity to get out a lot more than normal! The weekend after Christmas a couple friends and I took a few days to backpack the coast from La Push up to Ozette.

Taylor and I headed out early Saturday morning to stop at the WIC in Port Angeles for permits and bear canisters before making our way to La Push where we busted Quade out of work for some fun! Ok he was already off, but a jail break sounds more exciting. We were shuttled over to Rialto Beach where we donned our packs and started our journey.

Chilean Memorial

Norwegian Memorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent two nights and three days along the rugged Washington coast, enjoying every moment of it! We stopped at the Chilean Memorial, Hole in the Wall, Norwegian Memorial, and whatever else was along this stretch of super interesting coast. Getting a later start our first day we made it to Cedar Creek at nightfall.

 

Camp was made on the rocky beach right below Starbuck Mine. It’s surprising how comfortable it can be on all those rocks! Only one pesky mouse to bother us, but we managed to scare it off…or at least it was a little sneakier. We were alone on the beach but could spot some headlamps off in the distance north of us. The following morning as we trekked on we passed the campers only to find out we knew them! What a small world! We had been following their tracks wondering if we would ever see other people, maybe they were the ones that left the sand art for us to find as well…forgot to ask them though, darn!

The tide was still too high to pass so we took the overland trail up over the point. This was the first time I HAD to use the trail because of the water level, I’ve gotten to climb along them before while out playing, but it felt more adventurous with my pack on. Lol

 

Many more slippery rocks to cross for miles and miles…and when there weren’t any of those stretches I still found a way to fall and hurt myself! Maybe because I insisted on climbing over things I should walk under and crawl under things I could step over. J This resulted in slipping on a wet tree and almost falling to my demise onto a boulder smashing me knee. It still hurts and it’s been a week! Besides the bruising I may have done something more, it feels weird when I poke at it. :/

Our second night was spent at Yellow Banks. With dusk creeping upon us we spotted a buoy covered site up in the yellow banks! Haha, get it!? We set up camp on the nice rises already in place before finding some dead dry wood for the amazing fire we had! It only took a few hours, but good job guys! No sarcasm, I wouldn’t have gotten one started at all!

Nightfall invited us to a buoy scavenger hunt! If we aren’t able to haul them all out might as well get them off the beach and add to the eclectic feel of the campsite, right? We found a fishing net among the driftwood as well and made a snazzy hammock out of it! I must say, we had the best contribution to that site!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday morning we were to continue the last leg of our trip to meet our ride at the Ozette Ranger Station that afternoon. Since we were close “we can be there any time” was the consensus….high tide had other plans. We played and waited for the tide to recede enough to climb over the rocks and make it safely around. This was a great little section!

Heading up to Sand Point we got a little distracted, there were sand dollars everywhere! We started collecting them, decided to write out PNW, realized we didn’t have enough, ran around collecting more, wrote out PNW, took pictures, then were again behind schedule! So we dashed towards Sand Point, perhaps unnecessary but fun times. We jumped onto the Ozette Loop at Sand Point, not wanting to keep our chauffer waiting, and scurried slipperily along the boardwalk. Yes… slipperily. Boots went sliding across the wet planks although we mostly caught our balance. Only once was I unable to catch my balance so I let myself go and down I went off the boardwalk…what are ya gonna do?!

We took about an hour to get to the parking lot where we dropped our gear and relaxed with some sort of bean concoction cooked up…..delicious! It was now that Mother Nature decided to release the rain that she had been holding back all weekend so we could have an amazing trip! The timing was perfect! We then waited in the shelter for our ride, he was getting some fun in as well with a little trail run, and sang to the passersby. Some odd looks, but one couple that pulled up about half hour before sunset chatted with us and explained how they had traveled there so they could stand at the westernmost spot of the continental US. I didn’t know that was Cape Alava…I learned something new! They weren’t going to beat the sunset, but we encouraged them to go anyways since they came all this way and would not be able to return the following day. Way to go!

Another great adventure for the books. Thanks gentlemen!