After a few relaxing days enjoying the luxuries of city life in Portland, it was time to head out for our camping trip to Olympic National Park to rough it out. Originally we had planned to leave Wednesday night but that would’ve gotten us to the park late in the night. So we decided to leave very early Thursday morning for our 4 hour drive to our first camp spot to Campbell Grove, south of Olympic Park. We got to the campspot close to 10am, plenty of time to set up our tent and get things ready before our big hike in the afternoon. We decided to hike Colonel Bob since it was mentioned in one of our hiking books that it was one of the more challenging hikes you could do. We thought that it would be a cinch to get to the trail head since it was only 2 miles away from our campspot. We were dead wrong. Let’s just say that in our 2 hour hike we never made it to the trailhead! Our major obstacle(s) were crossing over rivers that had absolutely no bridge or any crossing whatsoever. We basically took our shoes off for most of them and walked across barefoot in the chilly waters. There were 5 rivers that we crossed, 10 if you include the round trip. So that was a bit time consuming but we had fun in the process. Not a way to start the trip but we did get our first adventure! We headed back to our campspot where we made the first of our 3 mega dinner meals. The menu that night was jumbo hotdogs with roasted veggies (carrots, celery, green peppers, mushrooms).
One of the many river crossings on the Humptulips River
Derrick, Vinh, and I taking a break from our adventurous hike
Derrick getting ready to cross the river
Fireman Derrick getting our dinner started
The next day we had to drive to our other campspot, Deer Park, northeast of Olympic Park. To get there, we had to drive all around the park through the Pacific coast, and up through Port Angeles. Along the way we stopped by for a hike to Hurricane Ridge. It was a good day for driving but a bad day for hiking. It was wet, rainy, cold, and windy. It was so cold that Vinh had to buy a fleece jacket since all he brought were t-shirts. When the rain stopped, we decided to do a short hike up Hurricane but didn’t get much in terms of spectacular views. Nonetheless, we did get a good hike in. During dinner, we had a few black-tailed deer sneak up to about 20 feet away from our campspot! I guess they loved our food better than all the other campspots. The menu that night was meatballs, roasted veggies, dinner rolls, smores, and hot chocolate. The meatballs that Derrick made were superb!
The big jump off Hurricane Ridge! AAGGGHHH!!!!
The Olympic Mountains from Hurricane Hill
That’s how close the deer was to our campspot!
The Perfect day. Clear skies. Warm weather. Awesome day to hike. This time we drove a few minutes to the trail head and headed out to Obstruction Point, which you could also drive to from the opposite side from Hurricane Ridge. The hike was worth it though – 15 miles of round trip beauty. Along the way, we felt like we were in one of those Super Mario games where we passed through the different worlds. We went through mushroom kingdom, alpine country, and ice-capped mountain world. When I first heard of Obstruction Point, I thought it was weird since I kept refering it to Observation Point. It’s not until you finally see the Point that you know why it’s called Obstruction Point, because it basically obstructs the view of the Olympic Mountains from along the trail. Anyways, after our big hike, we headed back to camp and had our biggest and best meal yet. Derrick sauced up some chicken and potatoes which were amazing and I made the rest of the roasted veggies. We finished it off with a nice cup of hot chocolate overlooking the sunset. The Perfect day.
Along the trail to Obstruction Point
There it is, Obstruction point! (notice the “obstruction”)
Buddha reunion! Conquering the Olympic Mountains
Watching the sunset from our Deer Park campspot
It is a great park – see my photos Olympic National Park