Olympic Peninsula

Sol Duc Falls is in Olympic National Park and in the north part of the park. It's a short and pleasant hike in to the falls, a hike my wife and I made last spring when we were in the Olympics. It was the first time we'd been to that part of the park but will not be the last.

Port Angeles lies on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula and is the gateway to Olympic National Park. The road to Hurricane Ridge starts in Port Angeles as does the road to Deer Park. Like wise the road to western side of the park runs through Port Angeles before traversing the north and west sides of the park. This photo was taken in Port Angeles near the harbor while on a trip to the national park last summer.

This will be my last post for a while. We leave for Alaska tomorrow and will not be back until the beginning of July. We'll not have our computers and will have very limited access to the internet. We will, however, have our cameras. We are taking the Alaska ferry up through the Inner Passage and will be going first to Kodiak Island and then on to Denali and the Kenai Peninsula. We'll be mostly hiking and camping before flying back home. This is in celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary, now a week away. Forty years warrants something special and for us this is special, though it may not be everyone's idea of a holiday. It will be our first trip to Alaska, too. The photo is appropriate, I think, since it was taken at Ruby Beach in the Olympics and this will be our ruby anniversary. Not only that, but after forty years I suppose we are in the sunset years of our lives (tongue in cheek). The photo was taken on one of our excursions together, hiking, orchid hunting and doing photography, and for that reason, too, is appropriate. Our mutual interest in these things and enjoyment of them has been a blessing in our relationship. So this is dedicated to my dear wife of forty years, whom I love even more than I did when we first got to know each other as teenagers. I wish we could have forty more years together, but I suppose that then we'd be too old to enjoy each other.

Anderson Lake State Park is on the northeast end of the Olympic Peninsula, not far from Olympic National Park. It is a popular fishing lake but closed at present due to toxic algae. We went not to fish but to see the wildflowers when we were on the Olympic Peninsula.

Sequim Bay (pronounced Skweem or Skwihm) is on the north end of the Olympic Peninsula off the Straits of San Juan de Fuca. This photo was taken by my wife in Sequim Bay State Park while hiking there with the Washington Native Orchid Society.

When we were on the Olympic Peninsula recently we spent a day and a half along the coast and our first stop was Ruby Beach, part of Olympic National Park. We arrived there in the afternoon, had our supper there and watched the sunset, the end of a beautiful day.

These trees are near the Deer Park Campground in a remote area of Olympic National Park. A fire there, started by an illegal campfire at a time when fire danger was very high, burned about 250 acres. These trees are left from the fire and will last for many more years, since a fire like this will often leave the trees dead but nearly impervious to rot. There are more pictures of the Deer Park area here: ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-olympics-second-day.html

Only a few more pictures to post from the Olympics. This is the view north from Hurrican Ridge (looking back toward Puget Sound and the Straits of San Juan). Some of the wildflowers for which this area is notable are visible in the foreground, including the miniature variety of Piperia unalascensis, the Alaskan Piperia. The picture was taken by my wife late in the day.

This was taken near the end of our two-day trip to the Olympics last summer. We had blue skies and sunshine up on Blue Mountain, but the lower elevations were fogged in. This view looks north toward Puget Sound and the Straits of San Juan de Fuca.