Olympic National Park

Our third and final national park on our tour of Washington was Olympic National Park, on the western side of the state. Starting from Mt. Rainier, we planned a route that would circle the whole Olympic peninsula clockwise. After very hot weather we were looking forward to cooler coastal temperatures and forested hikes.

We started the day at Wild Waves amusement park, just east of Tacoma, for Paul to get a few roller coaster credits. This is a small park (and mostly a waterpark), but there is a pleasant forested section and a nice wooden coaster. We spent about 90 minutes here before continuing on to the state's capital city, Olympia.

The upper portion of Wild Waves is shady and nice.

Timberhawk, the park's biggest ride.

When we arrived in Olympia we had lunch at a Korean restaurant and walked a bit around downtown before driving up to the state capitol building. It's an impressive building perched above the city. It was quiet with only a handful of visitors since most government employees are teleworking. We wish it was a bit more connected into downtown, instead of being surrounded by parking. Overall Olympia is a pleasant little city with good access to outdoor activities.

Downtown Olympia.

Yum!

The dome of the state capitol.

Inside the senate chambers.

The towering main atrium of the capitol.

It's a very classically styled building.

View from the hill the capitol sits on.

From Olympia we drove west straight to the Pacific coast. It was a sunny and warm drive, and then immediately turned foggy and cool as we approached the ocean. We drove on US 101, the famous Pacific Coast Highway, as it entered the coastal part of Olympic National Park. We stopped at Ruby Beach and did a short 1 mile hike along the beach, with plenty of eerie fog-shrouded rock formations. We continued driving, turning inland and arriving at our AirBnB in Forks (a small town famous as the filming location for the Twilight movies), where we met up with our friends Leslie and Lauren and had some dinner before bed.

Big pines on the beach.

Ruby Beach has neat rock formations.

David on the beach.

It was foggy, a huge difference from the sunny weather a few miles east.

Our AirBnB was a cute tiny house!

The next day we got up early for the longest hike of the trip - the Hoh River Trail. We drove in early to beat the crowds. The trail winds through temperate rainforest and along the Hoh River. The entire trail is 35 miles, but we walked just part of the distance (maybe 7 miles or so) before turning around. The trail is mostly flat, so it's not as difficult as some of the mountain hikes we did at Mt. Rainier and North Cascades. The Hoh rainforest is very scenic, and was a nice change of pace. 

aaa 

Here we go!

A big mossy tree.

A friendly slug.

We hiked through miles of verdant forest.

Every once and a while the trail aligned with the Hoh River.

Just us with some ferns.

Really idyllic trail at spots!

Tree door!

Some of the trees were amazingly massive.

Black-tailed deer friend.

Most of the trail was densely forested - this was the one spot that was a bit more open.

More views of the Hoh River and surrounding mountains and forests.

This little fungi looked like a turkey or maybe a squirrel.

If I had a dollar for every tree Paul stuck his head into...

After grabbing a late lunch, David was feeling a little under the weather and relaxed at the AirBnB while the rest of us went out for an evening beach hike. We drove from Forks to nearby Rialto Beach. We timed our walk for low tide, so we were able to walk on the rocks and see a lot of sea creatures. The beach was beautiful in the evening light, with big clouds banks rolling off shore.

Not so foggy today.

Pelicans flying along the beach.

There are a lot of huge rock features along the beach.

"Hole in the wall" is a popular rock feature.

View through Hole in the wall.

Leslie and Lauren looking for critters.

There were a lot of starfish, and even an area we named "starfish city" because there were so many of them.

I could walk around tide pools all day! Well, at low tide anyway. :)

Mini rivers formed as the tide started to come back in.

So many little creatures to see at low tide.

A particularly bright starfish.

A little forest of sea anemones.

Walking through some of the huge rock features.

Just a crab on the beach!

We loved the diversity of experiences between the rainforest and the coast at Olympic National Park. We would highly recommend a trip here. The park is huge and we barely scratched its surface! We'll probably be back to see some of the other parts of the park and do winter activities.

Forks, is a good base to explore some of the ocean and Hoh rainforest sights, but isn't a very big city so food and entertainment options are limited. That said, it was way better than the towns near Mt. Rainier!

Mt Rainier National Park

The next leg of our Washington vacation started with a rainy morning in Spokane. We left early, since we'd be driving 300 miles to get to Mt. Rainier National Park. Rather than just going on I-90, we took a slightly more scenic route for part of the journey, through the town of Pasco to see the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers, before passing through Yakima and entering Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The air was a bit clearer than earlier in the week, and we had distant views of Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier from more than 60 miles away.

The vast farms of eastern Washington are interesting in their own right. Reminded us of North Dakota!

What trip through rural America is complete without a stop at a local produce superstore?! They have a kiddie roller coaster too....but it was closed until the fall. 😥

Views of Mt. Rainier as we approached the National Park.

We finally arrived in the national park in the late afternoon, and went straight to Paradise. While the national park is large, it has distinct sections that aren't directly connected. So we stuck to the southern portion of the park. It was very cloudy around the mountain (Mt. Rainier makes its own weather), so we couldn't see the summit, but we decided to do the Skyline Trail loop anyway. It's a great hike, with stunning views to the south, several waterfalls, wildflowers, and glaciers. It was quite cold near the top of the trail, and a bit of our hike was over snow despite being late July. Highly recommended hike!

A little black-tailed deer friend we met!

Views to the surrounding mountains.

Hello, buddy.

A huge waterfall and glacier. Mt. Rainier's summit is up in those clouds.

The upper portions of the trail were quite chilly.

Lots of wildflowers lined the trails.

Just a marmot hanging out.

Hikers on a snowy part of the trail.

Paul at Panorama Point.

A wide view looking up the trail.

It was like hiking up into the clouds!

Views for days.

There were lots of wildflowers on parts of the trail, especially in the wet valleys.

Stream, flowers, and mountains.

We saw about 5 or 6 marmots on the hike.

Another waterfall near the end of the trail.

After the hike we ventured into Ashford (the small town we were staying in) to look for something to eat. This town is very small, there's a general store and maybe 3-5 restaurants total. Most of the restaurants were already closed for the evening, and operations were impacted by COVID restrictions and the recent reopening of indoor dining, with noticeable lack of staff. The place we chose this evening was called Rainier Base Camp Bar & Grill. They had a cool setup, with a big open air eating location and ordering happening at a central location. Considering there weren't many options, this place was packed and service was pretty rough. We don't want to be too critical, because it's probably a good choice in better circumstances, but the staffing and COVID impacts were noticeable. They ran out of forks! 😂

After dinner we went back to our AirBnB and relaxed for the night. We had a hot tub, which was great after the day's hike. That evening, we made plans to go back to the same trail the next day early in the morning, hopefully for sunnier views - and we were rewarded with a brilliantly clear morning sky. We just did a portion of the loop trail this time, mostly looking for Mt. Rainier views.

A little bird family on the trail.

More wildflowers and mountains.

Yay! We can see the summit!

So much color in the brief summers here.

Brilliant view of Mt. Rainier - so different from the previous day.

We also had far views out to distant mountains. This is Mt. Saint Helens.

And Mt. Baker also looming in the distance.

Glorious early morning views of Mt. Rainier towering over everything.

One last look at the glaciers atop the mountain.

Next we went to the Rampart Ridge Trail, a 4.6 mile loop trail a bit to the Southwest. This was a nice forested hike, with a clearing near the top of the loop with great views of Mt. Rainier from a different angle.

Most of the hike looked like this, as we walked up and over a heavily forested ridge.

Views from the top of the trail.

A wetland section near the end of the trail.

We were lucky to have a brilliantly sunny second day in Mt. Rainier national park, since it had been so cloudy the day before. We definitely recommend at least two days here just to increase your chance of being able to see the mountain in its full glory.

After hiking, we went into town for lunch. We found a small Ukrainian restaurant called Paradise Village Restaurant. The woman running the place was quirky and made a mean iced americano. They have great crepes here, by the way! After more relaxing in the hot tub and some trip planning, we wrapped up our day with dinner in town at the Copper Creek Restaurant. Again this place was slammed and service was slow, but the staff there were very accommodating and the food was good. We'd recommend this place if you're visiting Mt. Rainier.

Complimentary "we're sorry service is slow" homemade blackberry pie! Yum!

After dinner we headed back to the AirBnB before our long drive the next day. If nothing else on this trip, we've been hiking uphill a lot! David's fitbit is cheering him on.

Oh, no biggie, just 200 flights of stairs in a day.

Next stop - Olympic National Park!