Ever since Pam and I came down from Conic Hill on the West Highland Way, I’ve wanted to get her out to the Pacific Northwest so she can experience a “real” conifer forest and not just a patch. We are pretty religious readers of Backpacker Magazine—it’s probably the only periodical I read cover to cover. Once we saw a one page article for the Gray Wolf Loop as a great backdoor into Olympic National Park, we decided we would do this 40 mile loop in the Park’s NE corner. We’ve already been trying to get permits for Mt Rainier’s Wonderland Trail with no success so this was a great toe hold into Washington’s wilderness. Add in the endorsement of our Isle Royale ranger from when she worked at Olympic and we were sold.
The older I get, the more trouble I have with schedules of any kind. I get really nervous and (some might say) annoyingly anal as the deadline approaches. Plane flights are no exception. As usual, I’ve taken care of everything for this trip (itinerary, plane flights, food, and gear—the planning is a big part of the fun for me). I decided to be a little more laid back for this trip and didn’t make hotel reservations in advance thinking that we could (worst case) camp on the side of the road since Washington has so many National Forests, Wilderness Areas, and State owned lands. I felt as prepared as we needed to be, but, nonetheless, I still couldn’t sleep for fear of the alarm not going off causing us to get too late of a start to make our flight. By the time 4:30a rolled around, I was a wreck. And to make matters even more challenging, so was Pam.
When backpacking, my nightmare scenario is getting between a momma bear and her cubs. At home, my nightmare scenario is getting between Pam and her kids. Even though they fight like cats and dogs at times, if I interject anything into the situation, I am the one that ends up needing stitches. After 5 years, I’m starting to learn to keep my mouth shut—occasionally (passiveness doesn’t come easily to me). Since it was a Friday night, Sarah went out with some friends after work and didn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning and Pam won’t sleep until Sarah is home and in bed. The only way this situation will ever change is when Sarah is on her own, until then, Pam is the big fat angry mother f$%^#bear (not at all saying that my lovely woman is sporting even a single extra ounce of weight—as always, you look great in that outfit you are wearing as you read this!)
Pam with interrupted sleep and Curtis with time schedule anxiety left home at 5:30a to catch the flight from St Louis to Seattle. Fortunately, the trip to the airport and flight were smooth and uneventful. We retrieved our luggage (we fly Southwest exclusively when travelling domestic and I have never had any lost luggage or problems of any kind) and got our rental car without incident. As we were driving out of the rental garage, I noticed the attendant was foreign born. I asked if he was, by chance, from Ethiopia. He told me I was close; Somalia. We chatted for a few minutes and it was very enlightening his exposure to violence back home and his genuine feeling of thankfulness and happiness to be in the USA.
We plotted our course to the ferry at Edmonds. This is where we ran into our first problem. We waited and waited and waited for the ferry. For over 2 hours we sat in line to get our car on board. On the bright side, with sitting all that long without access to a bathroom, Pam got to experience what I feel 8 times a day and 3-4 times at night—bladder urgency extraordinaire! As we got closer to the ferry loading lanes, we took turns jumping out to find relief and buy some popcorn and drinks (no, we’re not very smart at times).
Thanks to the 2 hour time change, we were able to still get to the Port Angeles National Park Visitor Center in time to get our permits for the loop. Even though access is not limited on the Gray Wolf Loop, the NPS still wants to know who is there and where they are in case of emergency. Also, the rangers went over backcountry regulations and loaned us a couple of Kevlar bear canisters ($2 deposit each). Because we were going to be spending a couple nights above tree line, bear bags wouldn’t be enough. These were actually pretty nice bear cans and I was considering buying them until they told me they weren’t for sale and if they were, they’d cost almost $300 each. I’ll stick with renting them for that cost. As always, the NPS was professional, pleasant, and informative. This is one of two government organizations I always have a pleasant experience with when I deal with them (the other being the IRS—who’d have guessed; the IRS agents are tremendously knowledgeable and, in most cases, funny when I talk to them; at least I’ve always assumed they were kidding when they said a SWAT team was circling my house about to drop down if I didn’t send the check right now).
Now that we had a permit and bear canisters, we were free for the night (no time schedule hanging over my head). We drove on up to the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center. The Olympic Mountains aren’t that tall (Mt Olympus is just under 8000’) but they are very dramatic rising right out of the ocean. The highest we would go on this trip is about 6500’ but we are flatlanders from Missouri so anything over 75’ above sea level impresses us. Mt Olympus looks like a crown of mountains in shape. There are some very nice displays showing how the glaciers in the area have been receding over the years (with several of them disappearing completely). The panoramic view from the visitor center is mesmerizing. We stayed up there for about an hour until hunger pushed us to head back into town for supper and to find a hotel for the night.
As were went to the loop at the end of the road, we came across Daisy’s cousin (Daisy was a tame deer we met on the West Highland Way which impressed us with our ability to commune with wild animals until we found out she was the hotel’s pet deer). This deer came right up to our window and wouldn’t leave. She was actually too close for us to get a picture and we tried to get her to back up so we could immortalize her.
Indian food is by far my favorite and the choices are few in the bootheel of MO (actually, zero is more accurate), so we never pass up the opportunity while travelling to grab some. We couldn’t find an Indian restaurant in Port Angeles, but we did find a great Thai restaurant (Jasmine Bistro) with a good selection of Curry dishes.
After supper, we started looking for a hotel. Every hotel had “no vacancy” signs up. I went into a few and they even called around for me to try to find us a place. The closest vacancy was all the way out in Port Townsend, over an hour away. So much for a hotel, looks like we’re going to do the roadside camping worst case scenario. On the way out of town, we came across a KOA. RV campgrounds are to backpackers as going without phones are to teenagers. Pam doesn’t like to be around people in civilization because she doesn’t trust them in large numbers. So, ironically, she wanted to stay in the KOA surrounded by lots of people so she would feel protected from the lone serial killer roaming the backroads on the Olympic peninsula.
It was almost 10p so I agreed. All of their tent sites were full meaning only RV sites were left. They wouldn’t even discount a vacant site even though we were only setting up a small tent and wouldn’t use water or electricity. I guess we at least had access to showers and flushing toilets for one more night. Turns out, we were the victims of a lavender festival in Sequim, WA in addition to this being normal weekend crowding with people escaping Seattle for a couple of nights. I should have made reservations.