So I left Seattle on a ferry going to the Olympic Nat forest. On the ferry I met a guy named Todd. He was from San Diego and told me a lot about that city, and the places I should go. At the forest, I hiked on a trail that was 2 miles long, but rose 2000 feet. It was 38 degrees and I was dripping with sweat by the top. The view from the top was amazing. When I started the hike it was cloudy out. At the top I was above the clouds and could see mountain range all around me. I found the nicest birds I have ever seen too. They would eat right out of your hands.
After that hike I heard about a water fall nearby, and checked that out. It was only about 300 yards off the road. I was really surprised by how big it was, I would guess 100-125 feet. The coolest part was how it landed over rocks. The mist coming off the waterfall would linger in the air and freeze on anything around. So anything within 75 feet was covered in ice, but nothing else in the woods was frozen.
Later that night I meet Curtis Yanasak, at his mom’s house in Puyallup, and drove to his house in greenwood. The dive was very interesting, its a small 2 lane road where the pine trees are so big the branches from one side touch the other. It feels like driving through a tunnel. We went to a local bar next to his house, and I met most of the small town. Everyone in the town works at the ski hill nearby. The bar was nice quaint place, where everyone knew everyone. Lots of people brought their dogs along to sit right at the bar. Curtis is a snowboard instructor for winter, in summer he usually is a rafting instructor in Colorado. He has also dog sledded in Alaska, and worked on a fishing boat there. Another traveler too, he climbed his first mountain at 15 and traveled India with his brother at 17.
The next day we went snowboarding at Crystal Mountain. This has been the biggest mountain I have ever been on, and the largest in Washington. They just added a new gondola lift which was pretty fun. We went down a few times, Curtis giving me a few tips along the way. But he noticed something just wasn’t right with my riding. After looking at my board he found what he was looking for. He had a spare board for me and showed me the proper way to ride. It was like night and day, everything just felt so much better. He and all his friends are the best boarders I have ever seen, so it was great to watch and learn from them. The weather turned for the worse after lunch and started snowing/raining. It was getting hard to see and my muscles were done for, after using them in such a different/correct way. So we called it a day at about 3pm. Curtis ended up giving me board, which I was thrilled about. My old board was good for a first board but I definitely needed an upgrade. I can’t wait to use it again in Colorado.
After boarding I headed out, I drove about 7 hours to Newport, or. The next morning my plan was to get to Crater Lake before dark. That meant a full day of driving. I made it there just as the sun was going down. The place is almost eerie. When you enter the park you circle around and up the mountain, not really noticing until you’re at the top. You park and still can’t see anything. The snow here was the deepest anywhere I know of, about 8 feet. There was a place you could tell people have walked up, so I follow that and all of a sudden you crest over the edge of the snow and the whole lake is in front of me. For the size of it, it looks like a perfect circle. The water was unfrozen and wasn’t moving at all. I took a few pictures and was on the road again. It was getting dark and nothing was open anyway. I drove back to the coast and slept there for the night.
Today I woke up and went down to the ocean and walked around. I found a huge rock that was in the wake of the water. I climbed on and walked over to the water side. Where the waves were crashing, clams were everywhere and star fish just below the water line. On the rock I was on there were little pools with fish, crabs, shrimp, and anemones. The top of the rock had grass on it and other plants.
When I was done by the ocean I left for the red woods. The drive was amazing, a combo of mountains and ocean, with huge areas of crashing waves. Like most of this trip pictures don’t really work to show everything.
The red woods are separated into a few parts. There are the upper and lower areas, but also the old growth areas in each. The old growth areas were saved in the 1930’s the rest was in the 60’s. Today I checked out the upper old growth. Tomorrow I will explore the lower old growth. The trees are insane. You really feel like a midget in there. One of the larger trees I saw look me 33 steps to walk all the way around it. The base of the trees taper in at first, then they just shoots strait up. You expect there to be some kind of taper as they go higher, but they really don’t. It looks the same size for as high up as you can see, or at least until the branches. Even the branches are strange. They look like hand fans, just sticking out from the trunk. It hard to even guess how large they really are, there are only a few spots you can see a tree from top to bottom. I looked it up and the tallest in 379 feet, I hope to see that one tomorrow, and average is about 365.
they cut trees that fall on the path. so there are small ones all over
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