35 miles of day hikes in Olympic National Park...

[realityguy]

Just got back from the coast and back to reality(yes it sucks!).I hiked a total of 35+ miles on three days out of four..15 miles the first day with a full pack along the coast from the Lake Ozette ranger station to the Seafield Creek campground 7.6 miles from the trailhead and about 4-5 miles above Cape Alava..sat for about a 1/2 hour and headed back to the start.Before leaving town here I had been talking/emailing to another hiker that lives in the area and he and a group were planning a hike the following day.
On the way home I stopped by his place and found out the next day's hike was near my house starting from the Elwah River Valley and heading up to about the snowline near hurricane Ridge..called Hurricane Hill.It WAS a hill with about 50+ switchbacks and gaining about 4500 vertical feet.Coming down was a real bear on my knees but I survived and spent the next day resting up for Tuesday's hike with the guy I had been emailing.
Tuesday we headed out to Shi-shi(shy-shy)Beach around 12 noon or 1pm and did another ten miles down to Point Of the Arches,ate lunch, andheaded back that day.The upper section of the Olympic beaches has been pretty much completed in a couple day trips except for about 3-4 miles between Ozette and the Shi-shi trailhead.I'll bag those someday..maybe next trip with an overnight.
I got my hiking in for the week.Unfortunately I had to come home... A few pictures are attached..the rest can be scanned in its own folder..accessed through the picture links..Enjoy!..I did!

[zelph]

Glad you could get out and see the grandeur of your state and thanks for sharing the views. Photo 11, the log looks like an ancient snake. I'll make a copy of it for "Logs With Character"

Photo 17, whats all the colorful thingys hanging from the tree?

http://s226.photobucket.com/albums/dd25 ... pbeach.jpg

[DarenN]

Photo 17, whats all the colorful thingys hanging from the tree?

crab trap and/or fish net floats.

[zelph]

Photo 17, whats all the colorful thingys hanging from the tree?

crab trap and/or fish net floats.

Are they found on the shoreline and picked up as litter and this is the way they are contained until such time a storm comes in and washes them out to sea again.

[realityguy]

The tops of the "christmas trees" can be seen from the beach over the brush..marks the campsites and gives people things to collect while walking the beach.Lately there have been a lot of aluminum ones washing in.One of the locals picked up a nice 10" glass one during the last storm(when I was supposed to go up there a week ago and didn't.)
I have yet to find a glass one. .but I'll keep trying!Shi-shi had a LOT of floats lying on the beach.
The colorful ones are styrofoam and either yellow or orange usually to signify shrimp(yellow) verses crab(orange) pots below.Keep in mind there is probably a lost pot out there still catching and killing crab for every lost buoy...
I didn't get my glass float but I did find a nice free trek pole!
There weren't as many buoys on the beach farther south except for the aluminum ones,some as large as 12" across.

Litter..sometimes the volunteer cleanup crews leave them all in a large pile close to the trail.Eventually a group is organized to go in and pack them out.The access point at the beach has about a 100 ft cliff that needs to be scaled but an easy walk out from there of about 3 level miles of woods but it can get muddy.Trek poles are nice to see how solid the mud is before you're up to your knees..Been there,done that on the last trip...

[realityguy]

Dan..this will probably give you an idea of the amount out there--->



I wasn't intentionally trying to get floats in the picture..probably 3 of the 4 marked are floats..8-10" aluminum balls with a flange hanging out with two holes in it.
Because I walked up higher on the beach than in the other pictures,I was above the "high tide" flotsam line..why the floats are showing.This is the guy I was hiking with that day..not me...

[Ridgerunner]

Cuz, you definitely live in a picturesque part of the country. Thanks for the pictorial!

[realityguy]

I was hiking with a ONP ranger for about a 1/2 mile or so on the Ozette trip and we got to talking about the pile of trash left in the North Ozette campground last year that I ran into.He had taken a group of Juvenile delinquints in with him and thay packed out a couple loads up to Seafield Creek.There are some cabins there that are grandfathered into the park and cannot be passed on to relatives.When the owners die,supposedly the park gets the properties back.Anyway...there is a logging road 5 miles long that leads back to the Lake Ozette campground through a couple locked gates so they hauled the trash out to the road and got it out of there in one pickup load.
The juvies get a good wilderness experience without too much effort and the trash gets hauled out at the same time,killing two birds with one stone.I bet every one of them would jump at the chance to do it again.
The ranger was from Massachusetts and finishing his "ranger duty" in the ONP.This was his day off so he was doing what he likes best..up to the Ozette River Mouth and back.The river crossing wasn't too bad for me.The river was running pretty swift from all the rain that had fallen the week before,but it was safe to cross with poles out by the surf line..had pretty good current but not up to the knees at that point..I had to cross it twice.Fortunately it was a very low tide so it wasn't a problem on the return trip or I would have spent the night again at the North Ozette campground I reported about last year..by myself again.I thought about it..but I was more interested in meeting a lot of hikers the following day for future hikes in the area.
See..www.nwhikers.net/trip reports/..the Elwah to Hurricane Hill hike..there's a group shot in there of the day hikers I went with..and me on the right.That was taken about 3000 feet and i think we went up to about 4500'...

[sudden]

Beautiful pics and a great story.

I think I have the same walking sticks.

Those landscape shots could be in a book.

[realityguy]

The Leki Wanderfreund poles I've modified and cut off the "cane" portion of the handle because it serves no purpose(more harmful to wrists than useful!) and I use those poles a lot in my tent-making.The poles are nice because they have a nice loop for tying line to and also a small hole above the loop that will fit a smaller fiberglass standard tent pole section.I can solidify two poles into an arch about 12"-24" and spread the bottom of the poles out to almost 45 degrees if needed,creating a front end of a tent.By using those I can eliminate quite a bit of weight in the tents I make and I always carry them anyway..or at least one..if I pack a smaller bivy style tent that only needs one.
My tents only require a maximum of about 12-16" of real tent poles,about 1oz..other than the trek poles,which weigh 8.5 ounces each(minus the rubber tips also).
The poles were a thrift store buy at $2 each..