August 7, 2017sarahylockwood

Happy 31st Birthday – Guest Blog Post from my Baby Brother

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Note from Sarah: Today is my 31st Birthday! My adventurous baby brother has visited almost half of the National Parks in the United during the past couple of years, as such after every trip I’ve been bugging him to write a guest post detailing his excursions.  Needless to say, I was ecstatic upon opening my email this morning to the following gem! I hope you enjoy Samuel’s post about his trip to Olympic National Park! ❤

To start things off, I’m Samuel, Sarah’s good looking, younger brother whose throwing down a birthday post for my sister. Like Sarah, I love traveling especially when it involves national parks. This past weekend, my girlfriend and I had the pleasure of exploring Olympic National Park in western Washington. It was a quick two day camping weekend starting Friday after work, driving south from Seattle, eventually taking the 101 around the Olympic Peninsula.

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Our first stop on the Washington coast was Ruby Beach. The beach is as remote as it is breathtaking. We enjoyed playing on the sea stack rock formations and sticking our feet in the chilly water (a little too cold for swimming).

From Ruby Beach we traveled inland to the Hoh River Rainforest, where we camped Friday and Saturday night. The campground was well kept and in close proximity to the Hoh river and hiking trails.

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The majority of Saturday was spent hiking the Hoh River Trail within the rainforest. The trail offers many sites including beautiful waterfalls, mossy overgrowth and abundant wildlife (as you see below, we ran into a large bull elk). Along the trail, we came upon the “One Square Inch of Silence.” This describes an area within the rainforest that is said to be the quietest spot in the United States.

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Sunday morning started with our first attempt at breakfast over the fire. Proud to report that bacon and eggs was a success. Following breakfast, we said goodbye to the Hoh Rainforest Campground and headed north on the 101. On the way, we drove through a small town of Forks, of Twilight fame. Sadly, no vampire sightings occurred during our visit. 😉

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After Forks, our first stop was at Lake Crescent. Lake Crescent is a glacier formed lake on the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula.  We rented a canoe for two hours and were blown away by the mountainous landscape and bright blue waters.

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Our last stop on our route back to Seattle, was Hurricane Ridge. Hurricane Ridge stands at over 5,000′ in elevation and provides the beautiful views of the Olympic Mountain range.  On a clear day, a visitor could easily see Canada with a naked eye. Unfortunately, due to recent forest fires in British Columbia, smoke engulfed each of the sites we visited this weekend (which can be seen in our pictures below). Specifically, take note of the second and third pictures as comparison image where you can see the clear day view from an earlier trip in contrast to the smoke obscured view from this one.

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Overall, it was another great weekend exploring a new National Park. Looking forward to returning once the smoke has cleared.

Shoutout to my sister Sarah. Happy Birthday! Can’t wait for our next adventure (for example, summiting Mt. St. Helens 😉 ).

43 comments

  11. Happy belated birthday! We’re in Seattle but still haven’t visited. The Olympic mountains yet… I blame the kids and the fear of spiders… camping isn’t really my thing. I enjoyed the post from your brother, he’s got a good sense of humor that shows well through the writing.

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