October 4, 2013 Stripe MT trail

We hiked up Stripe Mountain trail out of Salt Creek county park. It starts at the campground and heads along the cliff, then up Strip Mountain which is above camp.

Hidden cove from above. The trail through the trees, lined with ferns.

Small steam on the way. The canopy is so think that the branches underneath loose their needles. Only ferns and shade loving plants can grow.

Over the green mossy bridge. Between these rocks is a small stream.

The stream goes down beside the trail to Hidden Cove. It is a very wet, lush, green environment in this gully.

The falls is about 30 feet high. The rocks on the trail are covered with moss.

Hidden cove is the perfect swimming hole. If it were warmer. When the tide goes out here there are tide pools. The trail up, with more moss.

Maiden hair fern, mycena mushroom with curly edges, orange mushroom, ferns growing up through moss, another mycena with a red fly, moss on the trees, close up of the moss, mushrooms growing out the side of  stump.

Shiny slimy mushroom, white mushroom, kelp roots grown around a stone, Indian pipe dried seed heads, earth star, thick mushroom, tiny coral, lots of little anemones in Hidden cove.

Back at camp no one wanted to camp by us, we had the whole row, with the ocean view to ourselves. Almost. Atrip mountain is the peak above the campground.

October 3 2013 Olympic National Park area

The government is still shut down, so we had to make the best that we could to sight see. Amazing sunny day after all the rain.

Joyce is a tiny town outside the park. It has a historic general store and post office with beaded ceilings and oiled floors and it looks much like it did 100 years ago. Crescent Lake is in the northern part of the national park. It is glacially carved and 650 feet deep, 100 feet below sea level on the lake floor. The water is very clear. The highway runs through the park, and it wasn’t closed.

The valley walls rise steeply around the lake. The historic Storm King ranger station, which was closed had the dampness rising off it in steam when the sun hit it.

We were outlaws and went behind the sign and hiked to Marymere falls. It was a mossy dark forest. We are getting closer to the rainest rain forests now. 

John on the trail. Ferns growing on a moss covered tree trunk.

Near the end the falls was stairs and cliff. Marymere falls. A 90 foot fall.

At Clallam Bay spit county park this part of the beach was gravel rather than sand, with agates. That is Vancouver island in Canada across the strait, with a cloud cover. Sea gulls scared up on the  spit.

Sekiu had Gil and Rosie fish as mascots.  Sekiu is a fishing village and the coast back to Salt Creek was logging, and tree farms. A working forest they call it..

October 2, 2013 Salt Creek Rec Area, Washington

It was gray and rainy again. Big surprise. We hiked around the park some.

This first photo is what is over the cliff in front of the campsite. The second is more of the tide pools, but at high tide

Same tide pool area  at lower tide, another shore at high tide.

Same one at lower  tide. A harlequin duck.  I had seen  photos of these ducks, but never seen one before. Really pretty.

A sea stack at high and lower tide. The tide goes low enough that you can walk to the island at low tide.

Rainy peninsula.  John smoked some tasso, pork and chicken, plus made onion soup for lunch while I hiked around.

Tongue point is underwater at high tide, but above water at low tide. Almost like magic. Instant tide pools. Looking at John and the sea stack back toward shore from Tongue Point at low tide.

Warning signs. You have to be careful, when the tide comes in your route back to shore could be cut off. The rocks were so slippery it was so hard to walk around it was scary.  Red seaweed, anemones with gravel and sea shell pieces adhered to the outside, lichen and moss on a tree, chitton, anemones, harlequin ducks.

mussels in a red seaweed called Turkish towel, anemone, patterns in kelp leaves, sac seaweed-keeps it’s water for when it is above water, red seaweed.

anemones, barnacles, limpets. The sun was out by now and setting.

Crescent bay at low tide, it was all the way back to the green shore at high tide.  one of two large batteries that housed a 16 inch gun at Fort Hayden. This was a military installation during WWI and WWII.

John inside the battery with some of the shells the 16 inch guns fired. Sunset from our campsite. This park was voted one of the top places to watch sunsets.

Closer up of the dramatic clouds in the sunset. The clouds are in Canada, over Vancouver Island.

October 1, 2013 Salt Creek Recreation Area, Washington

It rained off and on all  night in Sequim. When we got to Salt Creek Verizon told us we were in Canada, which is across the Strait of San Juan De Fuco, so we couldn't use or phones or our internet with out paying huge charges, so these next couple of blog will be late getting out.

In the morning I saw this wet spider web by the dumpster. We headed toward Olympic National Park. Here is our first glimpse of the Olympic mountains.  The rainiest place in the lower 48. Mt Olympus gets up to 200 inches of precipitation a year.  The surrounding areas get an average of 140 inches a year.

Our campsite at Salt Creek Rec area. Nice and sunny, nice view of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. The strait is a glacial carved fiord. We headed up to Hurricane Ridge in the national park to view the Olympics and found that it was closed because the government shutdown.  Boo.

Seeing as it was weathered in perhaps we would not have seen much. I hope the government gets it together so we can see the waterfalls, rain forests and rugged coastlines of the park. We headed into Port Angeles. Here is a Rocktopus at the waterfront.

Port Angeles from the viewing tower on the waterfront. Cool totem poles at the mall. I love the beaver on the bottom right.

At the Feiro Marine life center we saw and touched some of the marine life that lives in this area. Anemones, sea cucumber, sea starts and Opal the octopus. Also a seed head and wormy looking rocks by the tide pools.

We went to this tide pool area at Salt Creek at low tide, which is a little after sunset. The rocks were really rain slicked so we didn’t go very far. But did not see any of that colorful marine life.  Sunset from the bus.