This weekend we went to the Olympic Peninsula to go “camping.” The quotes are because we were camping out of a car, which, from my purest days growing up in the mountains doesn’t really count. Camping to me is when you hike somewhere away from a road and camp. BTW.
The first thing we learned on this trip is that if you leave Seattle on the 7:30 ferry to Bainbridge Island and you travel to the northern part of the peninsula, you will not get a campsite in August. And when you’ve looked at three campsites which are all full, you will realize that all the hotel rooms in Port Angeles and Sequim are all sold out. Which leads you to consider such ideas as sleeping in your car. But, no, there is hope! Hope comes in the form of a sign above an RV park “We wecome tenters!” OK, so spending the first night under a billboard for a Shell station, a few feet from 101 is not what I consider camping, but hey, you live and learn, no?
On Saturday we traveled up to Huricane Ridge and went on a short hike. Here is the money shot. If you click on it you get a bigger version (some users may need to move the mouse and click the expand button to get the picture to appear.)
On the hike up we saw…..a bear?
Upon closer inspection and questioning of our depth perseption, this “bear” turned into a marmot:
Apparently this marmot is a separate species known as the Olympic Marmot. We saw three of these fellers on our short hike.
Here is a shot of Mt. Baker which makes it look like the mountain is floating in the air:
The second night we found a good camping spot and bummed around the western coast. It is cool to go from alpine meadows to staring at sea creatures within only a few miles.
Yep, it was a good trip. Here is a picture of me cooking bacon. Bacon cooking bacon. Kind of funny?
O brave new quantum world!
ah, the land of my youth. did you hear the marmots whistling? also, you might consider going back to hurricane ridge this weekend to catch the perseids. at least, it used to be open at night. it’s a pretty awesome sight.
then again, even seeing the sun in summer is an awesome sight in washington (not to mention germany).
Seems like a nice place to grow up. Beautiful country, for sure. No, didn’t hear any whistling marmots, but I will listen for them next time.
Nice hair, David. Does your mother know you go out in public looking like that? Oh, and for next year’s hiking effort, I highly recommend Shi Shi Beach… It would meet with your high standards!
With a name like “Shi Shi” I expect fur coats.
I didn’t know there was really such a thing as a “marmot” – I thought it was just the brand name on my winter coat 🙂 I’m not an outside kind of girl. We pulled weeds in the backyard and that nearly killed me.
the north west coast has a lot of pretty places like this