Tag-Archive for » falls «

Aug
10

After some false starts on the coordinating, and prompted by a NWHikers trip report, Friday 8:00am had Sue and I in her car, on the way to Rainier.  The forecast called for 30% chance of rain before 11am.  Hah!

There isn’t a whole lot to be said about this particular trip that can’t be better said by pictures.  The road – long and washboarded though it is in sections – was just fine.  The trail was a bit of a rolling romp through the mountains.  And the weather was low-lying clouds and mist/drizzle all day.  We had a wonderfully leisurely pace and portions of the trail that was bustling with people – mostly backpackers, a few climbers, even a couple of skiers, and a handful of very brave (or simply very unprepared) dayhikers with tiny packs, jeans, and cotton.  I was happy for my gortex hat.

After much meandering through very traditional Pacific Northwest forest, with moss hanging from every available trunk and branch, we found a couple of fields of rocks, and a lot of small waterfalls along the trail.  Of course, we knew we were headed to a huge waterfall, but didn’t know whether or not they were related.  Eventually, a small sign along the trail pointed us to the right for a tenth of a mile, to Spray Falls.  And oh my, what falls they are.  You can hear them from everywhere, smell them from a distance, and feel the mist before you can see them.

Spray Falls

Spray Falls

We posed for a few minutes to get pictures, to admire just how far up the falls keep going, and to see if we could get across for some better angles for our photographs.  Perhaps if I had a change of shoes with me, I would have attempted the crossing, but instead we tried climbing up for a while – and I do mean scrambling more or less vertically – but found our path only moving us away from the falls, and too steep to feel comfortable continuing.  So on to the park.

Once past the falls, the trail does indeed climb a bit more steadily.  It’s a well worn path with lots of exposed slices of rock, and gnarly roots to trip the unsuspecting.  More than once, I wish I had brought my poles, which I had gotten out of the habit of using since I started taking my dog on hikes.  But it was worth it for the lush waterfalls and the park waiting for us.

As with all hikes that have a “destination”, if I haven’t been there, I always wonder how I will know the destination when I see it.  This time, there is no question.  You literally round a corner in the trail, and emerge from thick tree cover to an open field full of wildflowers and a stone path right through it.  And, of course, the first thing we must do is “oooo” and “aahhhh” over the lush, multi-colored, riotous flowers.  That is what this hike is about, after all.

It’s deceiving, however, as the field is pretty big, but doesn’t scream “Park” to you.  So, there must be more.  And more there is.  The stone lined pathway continues for at least a mile, showing you fields of lupine, gentian, mountain heather, mountain laurel, paintbrush, lily seed pods, and so many more flowers that I have forgotten the name of since Sue told me.  She’s read up on her flowers, and is quite familiar, so we took plenty of time lingering over the bright colors and lush size that the flowers were displaying.  Not to mention merely that so many were in bloom at once, and the show looked ready to continue for a little while, anyway.  We even saw a marmot – certainly not sunning, but hanging out – on a small ridge watching the humans pass on the trail.  He seemed quite content to just stay there, and let the mist coalesce around him.

Eventually, as must happen on all hikes, we turned around.  The weather had offered a bit of clearing, and was still quite damp and misty, but wasn’t heavily raining.  The time pressure meant that we did indeed have to turn around, but we did at least reach the snow fields that were still along the trail.

We continued to have spurts of complete isolation, and then run into medium sized parties one after another.  Some were coming out, some were coming in.  All had different destinations, and it was fun saying hello.  The rain started to come down a bit harder.  It hardly mattered, as we were so damp by then that it didn’t really get anything more wet.  The only trouble was keeping the glasses dry, and fog free, so that you could see where to go.

We took our time on the way down as well, particularly exiting the park.  Captured more pictures of the lovely flowers that were just endless.  The mist settled a little closer, but there was nothing for it but heading back.  We encountered a couple people who were doing some variety of loop – some just ending, and some just starting their journey into the four days of oncoming rain.

But we made our time commitments, and were back to the car (and, in my case, changed into dry clothes), and on the road by 4pm.  A wonderful, if thoroughly drenching, day.

And it is well worth heading over to My Flickr Spray Park photo set to see the other 70 photos and videos.

Aug
02

Sol Duc/Seven Lakes Basin was cut short.

Best Pump Site Ever

I discovered that my brilliant plan to lighten mypack and take advantage of he 63F nights were not even close to brilliant (maybe a little closer to the opposite of brilliant). Turns out, even wearing all my clothes, and using the sleeping bag liner, any place that was touching the bivy (thigh, hip, shoulder) was drained of heat. Next time, not skipping the sleeping bag. Given that the nights were supposed to drop six degrees over the next two nights, and K’s sore throat was sounding worse, I figured that it wasn’t the best of ideas to continue another night, and just get far enough in that we’d have to take the full four days, and when I broached the subject I. The morning with K, she agreed.

So we made our breakfast, packed up our stuff (trading who was carrying the bear caninster, got water from the best pump site I have ever sen, and headed back the way we came. K was generally feeling ok, but her lack of voice kept the trail talk down. It was absolutely a great slow hike, though. I took to a walking meditation of counting slow breaths as I walked, and we started taking more and more pictures.  The morning light offered a change from the late afternoon light we had the day before, and we felt no time pressure, so it was more of a stroll than anything else.  And a great one at that.

Sol Duc Falls 1

Sol Duc Falls 2

We stopped by the falls for a photo break, getting lots of various angles on the water – and she helps me try out a couple of new pictures for my website. Lighting and distance being tough, we didn’t try for too long. We passed lots of people asking how far it was to the falls, but had lost track of time while leapfrogging each other on the trail, to take more photos.

Spider on the Trail

It was lovely to take the time, and have someone who also wanted to take the time, to just explore the random things that come alive on a photograph. It keeps your mind in the forest, and is kind of like a treasure hunt. There was even a squirrel that cooperated by posing in various cute ways for a good three minutes and a spider that wandered down the trail with me.

Swinging Bench!

We ended the hike passing more and more people, families mostly, out for a stroll from the resort. Lots of teenagers with iPods, kids with cute hats and shoes, and parents with large cameras. The sound of a gaggle of kids in a pool greeted us as we began to emerge from the forest, and soon we were back at the car, changing shoes, grabbing a snack for the road, airing out the hot car, and taking a go on the swinging bench.

It was generally a lovely, fairly easy, hike through a very pretty forest with lots of bridges over clear, cold water.

Sun, Shade, Trees, Water - A Very Pleasant Hike

The full set of photos can be found on my Upper Sol Duc Bridge Flickr Set.

Aug
01

I am writing this from inside my bivy, on the floor of the Olympic National Forest, along side one of the bridge crossings of the Sol Duc river. Of course, it won’t be posted for another four days, but such is life.

Dehydrated Chicken Soup

After a few weeks of making food for the trail, it’s time for the first Hike-a-thon backpack. The trip out here was eventful – an hour late start as i had to complete some online training, a lost credit card I had to have the husband cancel, a friendly ranger and a clearly bored-out-of-his-wits ranger, and a vanished road – or at least GoogleMaps giving us bad directions. But the hike so far has been fairly uneventful. We didn’t hit the bugs tonight, but the next two nights are at lakes, so I expect my luck will change.

Sol Duc Falls for Hike-a-thon

The first trail we took, Lover’s Lane from Sol Duc Hot Springs, was quite pretty, and the late afternoon sun added to its charm. The falls themselves were more spectacular than I expected, though clearly it’s quite popular, and people have even left their hats behind as a gift to the falls. Or the hats blew off people’s heads, and they opted not to risk death retrieving a hat. Whichever.

From there, it was a long four and a half miles to our campsite. We passed a family heading out without staying after the kids were disappointed at the lack of a “feature”, even though it was right on a creek. We passed a couple who had set up in their campsite earlier. And a number of people who had clearly been day hiking farther in and kept asking how far it was to a parking lot we had not come from.

Campsite

Upper Sol Duc Bridge Campsite

Our campsite is literally just off the Sol Duc River , right next to some falls. Makes it hard to find a spot to pee, but a lovely accompaniment to dinner. We didn’t waste time getting to that dinner once we arrived, and our leisurely pace brought us to bedtime, from which I write you this report.

Tomorrow, I’ll be “seeing” you from Lunch Lake.