Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, WA, USA
Olympic National Park is our favorite place to take our guests to as here, within a single park, one can show the majority of what is so beautiful about our state. I have already written about showing waterfalls, rainforest, and ocean, and now I'd like to add to this collection a trip to show the mountains.
We get asked a lot about why we spend so much time hiking, what's so special about going up yet another mountain. I find that the best way to explain is to take those people to the mountains. One of the absolutely easiest ways to experience the mountains is to drive up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.
It's a long drive, of course. But here's the view that you see from the parking lot once you arrive. I'm not kidding. Imagine, you open the door of your car, step out and here's what you see:
"Gorgeous, magnificent!" - are the words that one utters right away. And, of course, one immediately wants to spend more time in this beautiful place, soak in all the beauty and become part of it... To oblige, there is a short paved walk along the ridge, just a couple of miles, and you can make it as long or short as you want:
Here's the view from one end of the ridge of the ridge itself:
And here's the view from the other end of the ridge. Down below, near the water, you can see Port Angeles:
The highlight of the hike were most definitely the deer:
This fawn was absolutely adorable: he kept trying to eat the same grass as his Mom, and she kept literally kicking him away from her food! :)
We were exceptionally surprised about how nonchalant the deer were about our presence. They just kept eating the grass, even if we were passing mere meters away!
Behind the scenes:
We were quite lucky that day: in addition to the deer, we saw a marmot! This adorable creature climbed all the way from the bottom of the mountain to the place where we were standing!
After taking so many pictures of the marmots, I could almost swear they specifically find the most picturesque places to stop and have photos of them taken! :)
Both myself and our guests felt that the trails were way too short and that we wanted to spend more time in this magnificent place. Hopefully, next year we'll get to go on a backpack hike around here...
We get asked a lot about why we spend so much time hiking, what's so special about going up yet another mountain. I find that the best way to explain is to take those people to the mountains. One of the absolutely easiest ways to experience the mountains is to drive up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.
It's a long drive, of course. But here's the view that you see from the parking lot once you arrive. I'm not kidding. Imagine, you open the door of your car, step out and here's what you see:
"Gorgeous, magnificent!" - are the words that one utters right away. And, of course, one immediately wants to spend more time in this beautiful place, soak in all the beauty and become part of it... To oblige, there is a short paved walk along the ridge, just a couple of miles, and you can make it as long or short as you want:
Here's the view from one end of the ridge of the ridge itself:
And here's the view from the other end of the ridge. Down below, near the water, you can see Port Angeles:
The highlight of the hike were most definitely the deer:
This fawn was absolutely adorable: he kept trying to eat the same grass as his Mom, and she kept literally kicking him away from her food! :)
We were exceptionally surprised about how nonchalant the deer were about our presence. They just kept eating the grass, even if we were passing mere meters away!
Behind the scenes:
We were quite lucky that day: in addition to the deer, we saw a marmot! This adorable creature climbed all the way from the bottom of the mountain to the place where we were standing!
After taking so many pictures of the marmots, I could almost swear they specifically find the most picturesque places to stop and have photos of them taken! :)
Both myself and our guests felt that the trails were way too short and that we wanted to spend more time in this magnificent place. Hopefully, next year we'll get to go on a backpack hike around here...