OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK
Activity: Visitor Center, Scenic Stop, Day Hike
2 miles, 200’ elevation gain, 1 hour duration, rated Easy
Date: 6-4-22
Into the Olympic Rainforest we go. What an exciting and alive place. There was so much expectation on the part of my 18 year old son, Alec, and myself of beauty and adventure in this, the rainiest place on earth. We planned on being here a week and to see as much as we could.
We were actually pretty lucky, I feel, as for the rainiest place on earth, there was only one day, which came near the end of our rainforest adventure, that it really rained, and I mean really rained on us. The rest of our time we experienced some sun, some dry cloudy skies and we also experienced mizzle, which NW Washington folks described to us as a mixture of mist and drizzle, okay… Back to the luck part. Many times right after we finished an outdoors adventure and loaded up the Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro and started heading for our next destination in the Olympic National Park it would rain pretty good. Also, during the night the rain would come down after we were tucked away warm and dry in the rig for the night. So other than that one day, where we got soaked, we were indeed pretty lucky.
We made a couple stops on our way to gain more knowledge of what we were getting ourselves into by heading for the Olympic National Forest Wilderness Information Center near Port Angeles, Washington. We stopped and checked out a large old growth cedar tree transformed by Northwest Coast Tribes into a big Totem Pole.
When we arrived at the Olympic National Forest Wilderness Information Center they had a display of an old wooden cabin that might be typical of this area. Inside the center we found some interesting displays before we spoke to a Ranger whom helped us consider how best to spend this Father/Son – HS Grad time before Alec leaves for college.
After getting some great ideas regarding our Olympic National Forest Journey, we decided to get in a quick hike, which conveniently began right at the center. The Peabody Creek Trail really shows off and right off the bat how spectacular and unusual the rain forest can be.
As we started our trek it was so unreal to see there was so much life that it was practically spilling out all over us. The green so vibrant, the damp ground and vegetation so fresh, so earthy. So much life that it was actually growing on top of each other. During our time in this National Park we saw many examples of new trees growing right out of, or on top of a dead one. Also, some trees were just so bizarre in the shapes and the strange ways that they grow. Then there is the mud… the Peabody Creek Trail was not too bad, you could maneuver around it pretty handily, but later we decided to try out the Peabody Creek Loop as well and that was more remote, more wild, and a lot more muddy. Finally we thought better of it when there was a portion that was not only all mud with a few roots, but steep. Adding the portion that we did of Peabody Creek Loop pretty much doubled our little outing. We would have been scrambling up this mud hill, perhaps on hands and knees, so we head back from which we had come.
A great start to this adventure of crazy trees, vines, plants, and green so much green, oh… and a big slug.
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Alec and I are so excited to bring to you the start of our journey into Olympic National Park. It is stunningly beautiful and a world so different from the desert on the ocean, which is our home of Southern California. “Seems It never rains in Southern California, seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before, it never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya’ it pours, man it pours”, are famous lyrics from Albert Hammond. The song is about the struggle of someone coming to Hollywood to try and hit the big time, but at the same time if you take it more literally it does describe the weather in SoCal. It hardly every rains, which is evident by the horrible drought we have been experiencing for a couple decades, so when it does rain it comes all at once and neither the dry, hard ground or the infrastructure is ready for it and we get flooding. Conversely, in the rainforest “the rainiest place on earth” it mostly rains lightly, but pretty darn often, and if it isn’t raining it is drizzle, or mist, what a local referred to as ”mizzle”. What all that rain brings is an enchanting, bewitching place full of spectacle and wonder, but be forewarned bring your rain gear. Stick with Alec and I on this Vivid Green Escape from reality into the rainforest and you can do that easy enough by doing these simple steps: LIKE, COMMENT, FOLLOW and SHARE. If you go to the menu above you will see that PBTA travels extensively throughout these great Western States while ’Pursuing Balance Through Adventure’ in hopes to bring to you ideas and inspiration of how to take the ho hum, busy, work-a-day life that we all exist in, and balance that out with the beauty, and the magnificence of nature, Nature Heals. Each location or activity on the menu represents a different website and thus needs to be FOLLOWED independently. If you like my hat in the picture than get one for yourself at SHOP APPAREL.
Happy Trails-
Roger Jenkins
Pursuing Balance Through Adventure
National Parks Hiking 