Olympic: Sol Duc and Marymere Falls, Hurricane Ridge, and the Puget Sound

After two nights at Kalaloch, we drove towards Port Angeles for a couple nights in an Airbnb to resupply, do laundry, shower, and enjoy some modern conveniences! On our way we stopped at Sol Duc Falls and hiked to the falls before having a delicious birthday lunch at the Sol Doc Resort (happy birthday, Isaac!)

Then we drove a little further and stopped at the trailhead for Marymere Falls..

Which was also very lovely! 

Then we went to Costco and after everyone was settled post-dinner, Neil and I went on a run to the end of the spit, and ugh--it was a craaaazy long downhill and then we were running on some pretty uneven stuff and my calf pulled again. So frustrating, I was having major issues with my calves most of the summer and I thought I was through them! My dad picked us up and then I spent the rest of the night icing my calves, stretching, etc., and praying I would be able to walk the next day (we had a really big hike planned and I knew I couldn't do it anymore, but I was hoping I would be able to at least do something!). 

Here's the view of Canada from our abortive run...

My dad was heading back to Provo the next morning, so after he left, we packed up and headed up to Hurricane Ridge to check out the mountainous side of the park. I'll be honest, this was kind of a bust. So much of the park is mountainous but you really need to be backpacking to access it, so it just kind of felt like a tantalizing torment to see the mountains we really wanted to be in! But thankfully I was able to do the Hurricane Ridge hike so we at least got some good views. (It was really really hot.) 

But the flowers were gorgeous--I was bummed my dad had left because I knew he would have loved them! (Sidenote: I realized the other day that we've got some generational appreciation of beauty when Abigail was texting me photos of  flowerbeds from BYU campus and my dad was texting photos of the wildflowers on Timp.) 

After a week of camping a cart like this just looks soooo good! 

Matty got a sweatshirt at Sol Duc that was huge on him and I think his little bare legs sticking out from under it are basically the cutest things ever. 

Then the next morning we checked out of our Airbnb and headed towards our ferry across the Puget Sound!

While we were waiting for the ferry departure (we left pretty early in case we hit traffic) we wandered around the town and it was so cute!

And a very cool whale skeleton that had washed up in the town at one point and then been preserved in this public park. 

Aboard the ferry--so fun! 

We spent about two minutes at this puzzle table before heading up to the deck and hopefully scanning for whales during our crossing. No luck. 

On to North Cascades! 

 

Rialto & Kalaloch

First of all, let me say that I highly recommend camping at Kalaloch if you can snag a site! We loved being right on the beach (the first night Neil and I went down for a long walk on the beach and it was so crazy foggy, we literally could see nothing and just walked towards the sound of the ocean. It was incredible). 

And our campsite was so beautiful! 

We really had some amazing campsites on this trip. 

On our first full day we drove out to Rialto Beach to hike towards Hole-in-the-Wall. The drive takes you through Forks and the La Push reservation, which you may recall from the Twilight books. I'm not a Twilight fan, but I did find it pretty fun how the town was leaning in hard to their Twilight-acquired fame. This was the line between Forks and La Push. 

Rialto was a bit of a drive and parking can be challenging, but it is SO worth it! 

You just want to be sure to time your hike appropriately, since all of this will be underwater at high tide! 

We saw some seals bobbing in the surf and lots of pelicans. 

And perhaps one of the most interesting wildlife specimens we saw on this trip--a washed-up dead infant Dall's porpoise (happy to report that I was the one who spotted it). 

The tidepools in Olympic were so incredible! It was really interesting to see how ENORMOUS the sea stars were compared with the ones in Crescent City. As my kids said, they were "super chonky." 

I mean look at those puppies! 

We were so into the tide pools but eventually tore ourselves away so that we wouldn't miss low tide at Hole in the Wall. 

Which fortunately had tide pools all around it. 

You definitely want to be careful climbing around on the rocks--most of them are slippery and if you land on mussels or barnacles it majorly hurts. 

We had a blast exploring the rocks on the other side of Hole in the Wall. The waves were smashing against the cliffs and it was so gorgeous. 

Another place that I could have stayed for hours and hours (but time and tide wait for no woman). 

Eventually it was time to wend our way back...

So insanely beautiful. 

The beach is right on the border of the park and the La Push reservation, so I finally found a sign! 

Then we went back to the car and got some goodies from a Trader Joe's stop between Rainier and Olympic (we bought so much good stuff and got a few great picnics out of it!). 

Juliet took a post-picnic nap. 

And the boys built some houses...

Then Neil and I started playing a game where we were tossing rocks at other rocks on a log trying to knock them off. Pretty soon all eight of us (my dad had walked down the beach a ways to take a phone call) were throwing rocks and we had made up an awesome game and had SO MUCH FUN. It was one of my favorite hours of the trip. We have big plans to recreate it in Acadia. 

When we got back to Kalaloch, we had planned to cook tin foil dinners in a fire on the beach but as Neil and my dad headed down to the beach...they found a sign saying that the beach was closed for fires starting that night (due to fire danger). Oh man it was such a bummer!! 

We ended up cooking them at our campsite and then going down to the beach. 

Sidenote: check out the beach-blown hair on these boys. 

It really was such a beautiful campsite!

Sooo many jellyfish washed up, most with partially digested fish still visible in them. 

Tree of Life at Kalaloch

We went for a looong walk on the beach as the sun was setting and the girls found SO many sand dollars (the rest of us were so sad we didn't find any and then Juliet carefully seeded our path with sand dollars on the way back. None of us ever caught on until we were counting them all up at the end and I asked her where hers were. It was such a sweet gesture!). 

Sunset was so so beautiful...

I loved Kalaloch--another place I wanted to spend a full week exploring!