Ahhh, today is the day! Today I will experience the Olympic Mountains intimately. Despite the excitement of this day, shrugging off the morning lethargy still took a little work. But, being completely packed for the trip, I knew it was going to be an easy morning. The first step of the day was to pick up our permit at the Wilderness Information Center (WIC) in Port Angeles. At the WIC we paid for our permit, got directions and a bear can. After a few minutes we were out of there and on the road.

Seish decided to put in the next CD for On The Road and we listened to more of Jack Kerouak's crazy travelling antics. This time it was about his attempt to leave the west coast and head back to the east. His journey got postponed by an encounter with a woman that he ended up staying with for almost a month it seemed, until he got tired of the tangled circumstances with family and a husband. After failing to find a job to earn money for his return he finally gave up and asked his Aunt for $50 so he could ride back "properly" as he says it, on a bus. I really enjoyed this bit of his story. Partly it was the blossoming of a chance encounter with a woman, which is always alluring. Mostly though his story touched a bit of an idea I had been thinking about. The idea of roaming the country without being backed by a large bankroll. This is basically what Kerouak was doing and it seemed to create very many personally challenging situations from which he grew. The other interesting bit about his story was when he asked his aunt for money. At first I thought he was mooching on her yet again, but then I remembered that when he was working in San Fran, he was actually sending money to her. This is a different economy than I'm used to and it appealed to me. If you have extra money, you give it to people you love. When you are in a jam and need help, those people naturally have no issue with helping you out. Very different from the personal money hoarding concept that many people seem involved in, including myself to some degree.

The CD finished, and we arrived at the trailhead. Another beautiful day in the northwest, perfect for a hike. The hike started by a beautiful river, clear, cold and gleefully tumbling down the mountain valley in the fresh morning. The trail rolled gently through dark old-growth forest carpeted with green moss and decorated with huge old dead trees punctuated by small bushes and saplings growing straight from their rotten core. As we hiked higher and higher the moss carpet disapeared (green shag no longer popular up higher) and more little bushes popped up, including huckleberry and thimbleberry (thimbleberry is one of my favorite wild berries). Seish and I kept our power up with the help of this little treats.

Along the way, we met a couple hiking with their 3 year old son. It was encouraging to see a family cut through the myth that your recreational life is ruined when you have kids. They had a kid carrier backpack, and a huge backpack with all the gear in it. While it's obviously a lot more work than without the little one, and their range is limited, I image it's well worth the family bonding and outdoor exposure the kid is getting. We asked later about his sleeping bag and they said they had an extension for mom and dad's bag that connects the two and turns them into one hugs sleeping bag, and the little tike sleeps in the middle.

The seven mile hike in felt pretty long, but when we got to the lake it was clearly worth the effort. The little lake was nestled in trees at the edge of a beautiful meadow rimmed by magnificent craggy mountains and a lovely waterfall. To my surprise, the lake was not very cold, at least 10-15 degrees warmer than a frigid stream we had passed earlier. After setting up camp I had to dive in the lake to shake off the tiredness from the hike up. For our evening hike we decided to hike to the waterfall. There was a fun, short trail going to it through the meadow and up the side of the waterfall. Once we got to the top we were surprised to find that the water for the falls comes right out of the rock just before it tumbles downhill! We hiked up farther to find the source, but never found it. We didn't even hear gurgling water under the rocks in the boulder field above. What we did find though were some great small huckleberry patches - delicious!

As we started to prepare dinner, my stove (the never failing MSR dragonfly) started to fail. It burned for about 2 minutes then sputtered out. After a superficial cleaning it still didn't work and through a misunderstanding of the pump-valve I thought it was the valve that was faulty. What I didn't realize is that the valve is designed not to let any fuel out even when open if the stove is not attached to the valve. So, we did a deep cleaning of the dragonfly, taking it the nozzle completely out. There were certainly little chucks of junk in there and soon we were set for dinner - Tasty Bite indian fare and couscous - always great! The resident ranger, Nick, who lived in a large canvas tent by the meadow was stopping by during our stove troubles and had offered to loan us a stove. I thought it was great that they had extra stoves. Nick was a soft-spoken, fantastically nice guy that we talked with for a bit. He was actually leaving the next day - I felt lucky we met him.

We finished the meal off with limoncello hot chocolate and turned in. My hip was acting up a little and I hoped to achieve a better nights sleep with a couple ibuprofen, I think it worked. Mmmm, hot chocolate and ibuprofen...

-jesse

Ahhh, today is the day! Today I will experience the Olympic Mountains intimately. Despite the excitement of this day, shrugging off the morning lethargy still took a little work. But, being completely packed for the trip, I knew it was going to be an easy morning. The first step of the day was to pick up our permit at the Wilderness Information Center (WIC) in Port Angeles. At the WIC we paid for our permit, got directions and a bear can. After a few minutes we were out of there and on the road.

Seish decided to put in the next CD for On The Road and we listened to more of Jack Kerouak's crazy travelling antics. This time it was about his attempt to leave the west coast and head back to the east. His journey got postponed by an encounter with a woman that he ended up staying with for almost a month it seemed, until he got tired of the tangled circumstances with family and a husband. After failing to find a job to earn money for his return he finally gave up and asked his Aunt for $50 so he could ride back "properly" as he says it, on a bus. I really enjoyed this bit of his story. Partly it was the blossoming of a chance encounter with a woman, which is always alluring. Mostly though his story touched a bit of an idea I had been thinking about. The idea of roaming the country without being backed by a large bankroll. This is basically what Kerouak was doing and it seemed to create very many personally challenging situations from which he grew. The other interesting bit about his story was when he asked his aunt for money. At first I thought he was mooching on her yet again, but then I remembered that when he was working in San Fran, he was actually sending money to her. This is a different economy than I'm used to and it appealed to me. If you have extra money, you give it to people you love. When you are in a jam and need help, those people naturally have no issue with helping you out. Very different from the personal money hoarding concept that many people seem involved in, including myself to some degree.

The CD finished, and we arrived at the trailhead. Another beautiful day in the northwest, perfect for a hike. The hike started by a beautiful river, clear, cold and gleefully tumbling down the mountain valley in the fresh morning. The trail rolled gently through dark old-growth forest carpeted with green moss and decorated with huge old dead trees punctuated by small bushes and saplings growing straight from their rotten core. As we hiked higher and higher the moss carpet disapeared (green shag no longer popular up higher) and more little bushes popped up, including huckleberry and thimbleberry (thimbleberry is one of my favorite wild berries). Seish and I kept our power up with the help of this little treats.

Along the way, we met a couple hiking with their 3 year old son. It was encouraging to see a family cut through the myth that your recreational life is ruined when you have kids. They had a kid carrier backpack, and a huge backpack with all the gear in it. While it's obviously a lot more work than without the little one, and their range is limited, I image it's well worth the family bonding and outdoor exposure the kid is getting. We asked later about his sleeping bag and they said they had an extension for mom and dad's bag that connects the two and turns them into one hugs sleeping bag, and the little tike sleeps in the middle.

The seven mile hike in felt pretty long, but when we got to the lake it was clearly worth the effort. The little lake was nestled in trees at the edge of a beautiful meadow rimmed by magnificent craggy mountains and a lovely waterfall. To my surprise, the lake was not very cold, at least 10-15 degrees warmer than a frigid stream we had passed earlier. After setting up camp I had to dive in the lake to shake off the tiredness from the hike up. For our evening hike we decided to hike to the waterfall. There was a fun, short trail going to it through the meadow and up the side of the waterfall. Once we got to the top we were surprised to find that the water for the falls comes right out of the rock just before it tumbles downhill! We hiked up farther to find the source, but never found it. We didn't even hear gurgling water under the rocks in the boulder field above. What we did find though were some great small huckleberry patches - delicious!

As we started to prepare dinner, my stove (the never failing MSR dragonfly) started to fail. It burned for about 2 minutes then sputtered out. After a superficial cleaning it still didn't work and through a misunderstanding of the pump-valve I thought it was the valve that was faulty. What I didn't realize is that the valve is designed not to let any fuel out even when open if the stove is not attached to the valve. So, we did a deep cleaning of the dragonfly, taking it the nozzle completely out. There were certainly little chucks of junk in there and soon we were set for dinner - Tasty Bite indian fare and couscous - always great! The resident ranger, Nick, who lived in a large canvas tent by the meadow was stopping by during our stove troubles and had offered to loan us a stove. I thought it was great that they had extra stoves. Nick was a soft-spoken, fantastically nice guy that we talked with for a bit. He was actually leaving the next day - I felt lucky we met him.

We finished the meal off with limoncello hot chocolate and turned in. My hip was acting up a little and I hoped to achieve a better nights sleep with a couple ibuprofen, I think it worked. Mmmm, hot chocolate and ibuprofen...

-jesse