(all pictures are low res, for high res click here)
For the Memorial Day
hike, Ellen and I decided to head out to
Olympic National Park to hike the
Cape Alava Loop Trail.
Before we even started, I knew it would be a good hike when I watched a
bald eagle follow us on the
Kingston-Edmonds ferry. It's a fairly
big time investment to get to the
trailhead
, so you should do your best to get an early start on the journey.
The trail is fairly easy as it is mostly over wooden boards
to
limit the impact caused by hikers. There trail takes you over a couple streams
,
thru tall grassy marshlands
and after 3 miles, ending at the
Pacific
Ocean
. Once there, we found a pile of
boat fenders
and the ocean was not quite at low tide yet
. So we left the trail
,
climbed up a
sea stack and ate some lunch. While eating lunch, we were amazed at the
amount of wildlife we noticed. Two steps onto the beach I found a snake, and
later we watched these
oyster catchers
taking a bath and digging for clams. Finally, I spotted some
Harlequin Ducks and a sea
otter
. I've also caught these guys on
video as well, the ducks are in the foreground, and the sea otter is in the
background (you have to look closely!). This video and all videos on this site
take a long time to download (even on broadband), so please be patient. Here is
the video.
After watching the sea otter, we
began the 3 mile beach hike
to
sand point. Along the way
we found these
dungeness crabs
. Hiking along, we found
petroglyphs
which we think we created by ancestors of the
Makah Indian tribe. As we continued down the trail
we
found this natural arch
in a sea stack. We were just
about to Sand Point, when we found these Bald Eagles
hanging out in the trees. I even was fortunate enough to catch a
video of them flying around. Make sure you listen
closely, as you'll hear them squawking. As we left, Ellen took a
360 degree view of the shore (big picture!). We
left Sand Point and began the 3 mile trek back to the car, and found lots of old
growth trees.
We made it back to the car and began the very long drive home, at least this time we took an awesome detour thru Lake Crescent. Thanks to the holiday, the ferries were all packed, so we stopped for some damn good food at Gordy's Pizza and Pasta in Port Angeles and then headed to the Bainbridge Island Ferry.
This was a damn good trip, and I love hiking on the coast. If you have a lot of time to spare, I HIGHLY recommend trying this trail out.
