The Olympic Penninsula

Camping. Photography. Mist. Humidity. Sand. Surf. Ferry Boats. Mt. Olympus. Sunrise. Driftwood. Monolithic Rocks. Sunset. Hiking. Hoh Rainforest. Native Americans. Pacific Coast Highway 101. Expansive views. Hurricane Ridge. Olympic Elk. Okay.........so what do all of these words have to do with each other? Added all together, they describe the Olympic Pennisula in the state of Washington.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I have more photos than I do words.....(aren't you glad?) The first six photos were taken by Ron at Ruby Beach......some at sunrise, some at sunset. (They will be available for purchase on his website .. http://www.ronsouthworth.com/)

The week of August 17 to August 20th we spent on the Olympic Penninsual, camping and taking photographs of the beautiful beaches, mountains and forests. Our group consisted of myself, my husband Ron, and my mother Thelma Lindsay. Our first night was spent near La Push, Washington where we visited 2nd Beach......and yes that's the actual name of the beach.

Here is my mother taking a close-up photo of a starfish.

Ron and I usually don't end up taking photos of the exactly the same thing, but this time at the beach, we were both drawn to the same things.

The next day we set up camp at Kalaloch Beach, which is about 35 miles south of Forks. It was great to hear the roar of the surf at night......it drowned out the neighbor's dogs! (and the crows during the day......why do all campgrounds seem to have crows?)

One afternoon we decided to drive up to the Hoh Rainforest and go for a hike. The closer we got to the park, the hotter and more humid it got as well. We left the coast where it was around 65-70 degrees, and by the time we got to the beginning of the hiking trail in the Hoh, it was 90 degrees! With the high humidity, we were melting! It's alway interesting to see all the green and thick moss and foliage in the rainforest though. Because of the temperature, we only took a short hike.

This was an amazing root structure on one of the trees in the rainforest.

That evening was magical though. We returned to Ruby Beach just before sunset, and hiked down the short trail to the water's edge. These are some of the shots that we got. There were quite a few people on the beach, and everyone was enjoying the gorgeous sunset.

This is one of my favorite shots......the fog made the monolithic rocks look very ethereal and layered in silhouettes. Someone had piled smooth beach rocks into little piles on a large log of driftwood....which made for a pretty interesting picture.

This is a photo of my mom exploring the beach and the huge rocks.

It was quite a spectacular view that night, don't you agree?

I thought that it might be interesting to show the difference that the time of day, and the quality of light makes in a photo. These are all of the same places only taken at different times of the day. Pretty amazing changes.

Large monolithic rock, with hole in it.....one at midday, the other at sunset.

A creek flowing into the ocean, right where the trail down to Ruby Beach is located. Again, one at midday, and one at sunset.

A view from the top of the trail down to the beach, at Ruby Beach. Midday and Sunset.

Ron and I climbed all over the rocks trying to get a good angle for a photo. There was one kid who climbed to the very top of one of the largest rocks.....we weren't sure if he was going to make it back down in one piece, as it was pretty treacherous. I prefer to stay firmly planted on the ground! (.....or in this case, sand.)

My mom, getting out of the seabreeze by a large piece of driftwood.

As we started our journey back home, we stopped at another entrance to the Olympic National Park, which is located up the Sol Duc River. The weather was much warmer here, but also much less humid. We had a great picnic here....it was quiet and peaceful. The trees were absolutely huge!

On the way home we also drove up to Hurricane Ridge, which is also located in the Olympic National Park. The view of the Olympic Mountain Range from this entrance, is incredible. There is a really nice park lodge here, where they have a gift store, a snack shop and several displays and also guided tours by forest rangers. We decided to hike out onto Hurricane Hill for a ways. The trees looked like a thick green velvet rug. And we could see Mt. Olympus really well because the sky was pretty clear.....that is not always the case.

I love the alpine trees....they are skinny and straight, and their needles are thick and dark green.

Fireweed on Hurricane Hill trail.

Ron and I checking out another photographer's book and his pictures from Hurricane Ridge.

Some pinecones on the alpine fir trees at Hurricane Ridge. From a distance they looked like little birds sitting on the branches.

As we reached Port Townsend we got in the line for the ferry to Whidbey Island, only to be told that the ferry would not be making another run......we would have to come back in the morning! It is a very small ferry and does not hold very many cars. The wind had come up, and the the captain didn't want to risk getting waves washing up over the sides of the ferry because it didn't have a lot of freeboard. So we decided to drive down to Kingston about 35 miles south and catch the ferry that crosses to Edmonds. We rode one of the largest ferries in the fleet, which holds over 200 cars. It was a pleasant sailing. The worst part of the entire trip was driving up Interstate 5......they are doing road construction and we got stuck in traffic and didn't get home until almost midnight. We were so glad to get home and sleep in our own beds that night. We'd love to take another trip over to the Penninsula sometime soon. I'm not sure that I'm too anxious to sleep on the ground again and not be able to take a shower for four days! Other than that, we had a great time.