Pacific Northwest Trail: Port Townsend, WA to Cape Alava, WA

A few miles after leaving Port Townsend we walked up to a Shell station. Gas stations are obviously the a perfect place to stop and relax for an afternoon on a hot summer day. Fitty Shrimp is clearly enjoying his nap.

There was a bus stop across the street and to avoid the treacherous road walk ahead, we decided taking the bus was the best choice. We didn't bypass all the road walks that day. At least this road had a shoulder for us to walk on without fear of dying.

The PNT is not yet complete- road walks and bushwhacks are just part of the trail. But sometimes you find yourself in a bushwhack that wasn't planned at all, like when you end up off trail and have to make your own route back. This was one of those cases and it turned out to be the worst bushwhack ever. Just imagine having to brute force your way through one huge brush pile- you can't see the ground, stinging nettles are attacking your legs, thorn bushes are entrapping your whole body, and stray branches are trying to poke your eyes out. I was screaming out in frustration and pain but laughing at the same time. Seriously, who chooses to walk through this shit!? It was so bad that it was worth laughing about.

At least I was rewarded with blackberries, a tiny consolation for my suffering.

We had another bushwhack in the afternoon but this one I was happy to do. Sometimes you have to experience the big suck in order to appreciate what's little less sucky. I'll catch myself cursing at the dismal state of some poorly maintained trails- which there are a lot of on the PNT- but then realize, "Hey, at least there's a trail!" And with this bushwhack, at least there're no thorns or stinging nettles and I can see my way through it! Hiking the trail, even at its worst, is much better than not doing it at all.

The climb up Mt. Zion started as a bushwhack and I was prepared to whack all the way up. At this point, bushwacking up a mountain didn't actually sound that bad anymore. My earlier experience totally broke me and I was now happy to hike pretty much anything. Imagine my disappointment when I found an actual bona fide trail heading to the top. 

 Just kidding. Trails are really, really nice!

Now in the Buckhorn Wilderness, I'm trying to make my way up Marmot Pass. It got dark and I caught myself straying off trail once again. I ended up on a really steep scree slope with rocks rolling down the side at every step. It was pretty sketchy- I wouldn't want to traverse this during the day, let alone at night when I didn't know where I am and my headlight is starting to dim. Realizing I was off trail, I carefully turned aroround and walked back. I gave up on trying to navigate this this section in the dark and found a nice flat area to cowboy camp. As much as I love night hiking, there are some sections that are too nice to do in the dark. Even before I got lost up here, I felt guilty for hiking this pass at night. But fuck, the stars were spectacular!

But so was the sunrise!

The trail continues into Olympic National Park.

Home Lake is where I was planning on camping before I got lost at Marmot Pass.

I caught up with Rainbow Brite and we ate lunch in a wind shelter on Constance Pass.

I met RB way back in East Glacier before we started our hike but this was our first day hiking together as we were a always just a day apart one way or the other. Rainbow Brite rode her bike all the way from her home in LA to Glacier National Park and then started hiking the PNT. Here she is taking in some views after lunch. 

Lots of trees.

Streams are colored turquoise from glacial silt.

I hiked with Freebird the next day. Of all the people I met this summer, Freebird was by far the most interesting. After earning an economics degree from Yale but not wanting to work on Wall Street - which was was the push at the time - Freebird moved to Hawaii, became a professional windsurfer, retired at the peak of career, and started walking. Here he is some 30,000 miles later. 

We decided on an alternate high route through the Olympics rather than following the primary stretch along the river. The high route through the Olympics turned out to be one of my favorite sections of the whole trail! 

Glaciers are dying right in front us.

Clouds are incredibly dynamic. 

It got cold. My water bottles froze overnight. 

Mt. Olympus in the clouds.

I hitched into Port Angeles. Here I'm in town with Rainbow Brite, Freebird, and Belgian Babe. 

Art.

Watching for harbor seals. 

Lots of birds!

Belgian Babe was our trail angel in town. She invited us to her house for the weekend and she fed us!

Dinner by candlelight.

Fitty made pancakes in the morning.

If it weren't for Belgian Babe, who knows what we would have done. We probably would've been dining at the Nasty Chinese Restaurant down the street. 

And when we were finally ready to leave, Belgian Babe hiked out with us for a few miles to see us off!

The view from Hurricane Ridge.

After a 5000 ft. decent into the Elwah Valley, I'm greeted by this guy.

We crossed the Elwha River.

This used to be a lake.

And this used to be a dam. Actually, this is the site of the largest dam deconstruction in world history! Dam deconstructions are a big deal and this site is also now home to the second largest environmental restoration project in the country. Dams are destructive to the ecosystems in which they're built. Hundreds of thousands of salmon used to swim the Elwha each year. With the building of the dam, salmon were blocked from swimming upstream to spawn, reducing the salmon run to a mere few thousand. Dams also stop movement of sediment, causing erosion and loss of habitat.

Just ahead, the Olympic Hot Springs!

There were a series of tubs like this.

Waterfalls! 

Fitty climbing up Appleton Pass while trying not to think about the impending rain clouds that were headed our way.

The next day, I think it rained for 24 hours straight. In a futile effort to stay dry, we we didn't get out of our tents until afternoon. Even with the rain, this section I hiked turned out to be another favorite of the whole trail. The mountains were outstanding! Here's Heart Lake in the Seven Lakes Basin. 

The Sol Duc Falls were raging!

At the Sol Duc Resort for the night. The manager at the gave us a reasonable rate on a cabin. Can you guess which cabin we stayed in?

Unlimited use of the hot springs was included!

This is Tory. She was just a solo section hiker that chose to tag along with me for a couple days. I didn't mind. I met her in the rain heading up the High Divide Trail. She didn't want to hike alone and while everyone else she met that day appeared miserable, I wasn't fazed at all by the weather. 

This is a temperate rainforest. 

Our last trail town, Forks. Author, Stephenie Meyer, used Forks as the primary setting for her well known, vampire themed Twilight series. On this day, the vampire threat was high.

Now on the Olympic coast, we see brilliant sunsets behind towering sea stacks. 

Hole in the Wall.

Bull whip kelp.

Sea anemones.

Jellyfish.

Shipwrecks. 

All sorts of trash gets washed up shore - everything from bottle caps to small appliances. 

We had to wait at this spot several hours for the tide to pass. At high tide, some sections of beach are not passable. Bad timing could get a person trapped against a cliff in a dangerous situation. We used tide charts that told us the predicted times for high and low tides.

There are so many different patterns.

Something is make tracks through the sand.

Here, the beach is a flat, empty expanse, shiny and reflective.

At the end of the day, we came to this little grassy mound.

At the top.

Watching the rare supermoon lunar eclipse.

The Olympic coastline is wild. We walk along some nice sand beaches, but also over downed trees, slick rocks, and piles of rotting seaweed. 

Check out this old abandoned ranger station. 

People used to live here. 

Bat droppings.

Cape Alava, the westernmost point of the contiguous US. This is the end of the trail but there was no sign marking the spot, no jubilation - just three friends posing for a photo next to a pile of rotting seaweed and a dead fish.