It was with great sadness we learned about the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center and lodge burning down early in May. It is one of my all time favorite Visitor’s Centers. The road there was completely closed to traffic. Because of its elevation, it has been difficult to ascertain exactly why the fire started and do anything to prepare the region for visitors. However, it made us spend a day in Victoria instead – not such a bad plan B.
First off, the campground is on Crescent Lake, and Crescent Lake is overwhelmingly gorgeous. To get to the campground from Port Angeles, you drive several miles of the 101S freeway along the lake with green mountains of evergreens all round it. It helped, I’m sure, that is was a beautiful and sunny day; the first sunny day we had seen in a bit. This campground also had walk in campsites that were RIGHT ON THE WATER! At night you could see the campfires across the lake. So peaceful. Fairholme itself, was an OK campground, with decently isolated spots but bathrooms were few and far between. We happened to be right on the trail to one but most people had to make quite the trek. Also, there weren’t any good hikes nearby. We did walk to the marina and around the lake a little, but mostly you had to go somewhere else to hike.
Like many National Parks, Olympic has a lot of driving to get anywhere. In some ways it feels like more, because the park is not contiguous – it is broken up into different areas. There is Hurricane Ridge south from Port Angeles, the Hoh rainforest on the west side and separate from Hurricane. Then there are a series of beach areas around Forks and La Push (Mora) that are separate from Hoh on the west side. There may not be as many roads as in a park like Yellowstone, but you are going into and out of the park a lot. We just figured out that Port Angeles is the “tip” of Highway 101 (the Pacific Ocean Highway). As you approach Port Angeles from say Tacoma you are on North 101, then you go to West 101, and then South 101 to Forks. It loops across the top of the peninsula.
We found that areas in the different regions were crowded and I overheard the ranger telling another person that usually half the visitors on any given day go to Hurricane Ridge. And now that option is gone. So everyone is stuck going to the same parts of the park instead of spacing out. And that is exactly how it felt here. Everyone was trying to avoid others but there are always those few groups that can be obnoxious and ruin it for others. Why the HELL do you need to play music in the wilderness?? I want to listen to the birds and rivers. And wind!
We spent one day walking through the Hoh Rainforest – the only temperate rainforest in North America. It was crowded at first, but if you go far enough, you do leave the crowds behind. We took several trail spurs to see the Hoh river – and lots of raptors – osprey and eagle especially. We also saw deer.. But no bears – it was surprising how many peas pile were going way into the park with all the warnings about bears and mountain lions. I’m way past thinking that sounds fun these days!
We also took a day to go through the beach areas of the park. There are several long skinny sections of beach in between the indigenous reservations. The weather was actually quite warm – until 300 yards from the ocean. The marine layer was so thick you could barely see! We had to dig through the back of the car to find sweatshirts!! We also saw several Bald Eagles soaring while driving but never got a decent picture of them.
We also took a day to ferry over to Victoria Island and go to Buschart Gardens. I think I’ll write another blog about that trip and get this one finished! By for now!