I didn’t get to do a lot of hiking at Olympic National Park either as I was mainly entertaining the girls. I did however take one day to myself and went hiking and let the girls entertain themselves in Port Angeles. Port Angeles is a very walkable town with a lot of shops and places along the shore to go see and I had just spent the last three days entertaining the girls, so I didn’t feel terribly guilty about getting up early and going hiking by myself.

Hurricane Ridge Trail, which is an 18 mile drive up into the park from Port Angeles is one of the most popular and heavily trafficked trails. It is a paved trail above 5000 feet that climbs about 700 feet over 1.6 miles to the overlook at the top, so it was a nice hike for first thing in the morning. I got there at dawn, which is nice as the parking lot at the trailhead was mostly empty when I got there and completely full when I left. So, get there early for the good morning light and for the easy parking.

When I got up early Sunday morning down at sea level in Port Angeles, the sky was covered by thick gray clouds. But, I headed out anyway hoping they would clear a bit, but if nothing else I’d get in a hike. About halfway up the mountain, I passed above the cloud deck and there were beautiful views of the valleys below filled with the low clouds. It’s always best to just get out of bed and go, I find. Below is a panorama I took near the top of the main road showing the low clouds like a lake in the valleys below.

There is wildlife along the trail and I saw dozens of chipmunks and one deer. If you look, you will find a chipmunk eating a pine cone in the tree. The deer was being very still, which made him very easy to photograph.

There are a lot of benches along the trail to sit and rest, but I didn’t have any trouble making it to the top. There were quite a few other people on the trail so I was never very alone. The other people give you the opportunity to use them as scaling elements in your photo and that is what I did with the couple in the photo below. I wanted their silhouette against the layered mountains in the distance.

There is an overlook at the top of the trail that would allow you to look down on Port Angeles and the Straight of Juan de Fuca, but the low cloud deck prevented me from seeing any of that.

Of course one of the main highlights of the trail is views of Mount Olympus which is visible for most of the hike. It was bit shrouded by haze and clouds but it occasionally caught some morning light. Below is a close-up of the flowers along the trail with Mt. Olympus in the background.

The way back to the trailhead is easier as you have gravity giving you back some of the work you put in getting up there. In the image below you can see some of the trail winding back down toward the parking area. I had a lot of trouble editing these images with all of the haze across the mountains as it was hard to get the contrast correct and the haze makes the scene look very blue. So, most of my images have been de-saturated quite a bit with a little bit of contrast applied.

Later in the day, I hiked to some waterfalls on a very crowded trail, but it was worth the hike. I would have covered a lot more of the park if I had been there alone, but I got to see a few good things. Another park I would like to get back to some day and do more exploring.