Limits, like fears….. Are often an illusion

Olympic National Park -

I finally did the HWY 101 Loop around the Olympic National Park, and what a beautiful drive! Lauren and I only had three days to enjoy the park, and we were able accomplish a lot with our time.

Initially we were planning on staying for four days and three nights, but ended up leaving one night early as we had seen all of the major sites. On the first day we ventured into the Quinalt Rain Forest. With every type of tree, moss, waterfall, leaves, insects, and animals one could imagine, it truly was a wonderful introduction for our trip. Once we finished with the Rain Forest we drove to Kalaloch, which is where we set up camp for the night. The rock formations were stunning, and we really enjoyed walking around on the beach. We ate dinner at the Kalaloch lodge, and headed back to our camping ground.

We woke up early Thursday morning and headed to Ruby Beach, and what a site that was. While we only stayed for about an hour, it was an hour well spent. I definitely would tell anyone to visit that spot, as it was a great start to a great day. Next we traveled into Hoh Rain Forest. Both Lauren and I agree that one of the most amazing things about traveling Highway 101 was how vastly different the scenery was in different areas. Not many places in the world, if any, offer such wide array of geological terrain: from oceans, to rivers, to meadows, to rain forests, to creeks, to mountains, we truly saw everything! Hoh Rain Forest was spectacular, there are little to no words I could use to express how utterly stunning it was. We were welcomed with a mossy and beautiful creek, walked into the Hall of mosses, and enjoyed the Maple Glade trail. We walked next to rivers, meadows of mushrooms, pastures of wild flowers, and miles and miles of trees. Lauren was hoping we would see an otter or an elk, and when we saw a large amount of elk droppings at the start of one of our trails, she was even more excited. Sure enough we walked right into an area where three elk were feasting. As we walked toward the location where the elks were located we could hear a faint whining sound and a clicking of what sounded like branches. I knew by the whining sounds that they were elk. We saw an amazing sight, two elks about the height of me, fighting literally six feet away from where we stood. After all that, I’d say our hike in Hoh Rain Forest was a huge success.

We ended our day at Mora Campground, in the forest, and only a short hike to Rialto Beach. We would both agree the Rialto beach was perhaps one of our favorite parts of the trip. After watching elk fight, we were able to explore the changing tides of the beach. We walked out onto rocks where we were welcomed by schools of starfish and sea urchins. In one area there were about 100 starfish toppled on top of one another on a rock. We ended day two walking back to our site next to the sunset.

Our last day was also quite a success. This day was probably our longest hiking day, but we were able to see some beautiful sites. We started with Sol Duc Falls, picnicked at Lake Crescent, hiked up to Marymere Falls, and ended our day with Hurricane Ridge. If you only have one day to visit the Olympic National Falls, do the Hurricane Ridge hike because the end result is utterly breathtaking. At the top of the long trek up to hurricane ridge (8,000 ft) you are welcomed by views unimagined, pictures don’t do it justice. to the north we saw Canada and sprawls of water and the straight of Juan De Fuca. To the west, miles of lush yellow meadow and snow peaked mountains, to the east Mount Baker, and to the south more and more mountain peaks.

We finished our day driving on the Hood Canal. All in all, an amazing three days! Check out the photos.

Olympic National Park – Elk from Drew Larrigan on Vimeo.

Jordan, Chris, and I , decided to drive five hours North of LA to Yosemite National Park. Yosemite National Park was the 3rd established National Park in US history. If you ever have a chance to visit Yosemite NP make sure to drive through Yosemite Valley. This drive offers views of El Captain, Yosemite Falls, Half-Dome, and Bridalveil Falls. Our goal of the trip was to summit Half-Dome. Half-Dome is a 16.4 mile hike in hot temperatures with an elevation of 8,8000+ ft. Unfortunately Yosemite, and shockingly our hotel, were both on fire when we arrived! Our reservations were canceled due to the evacuation, leaving us no place to stay. This ultimately put a detour in our plan of summiting Half-Dome. Regardless of the troubles we ended up doing some amazing hikes, and took some nice photos! OH, and we saw a black bear. Check out my photos of Vernal Falls, Half-Dome, Nevada Falls, Sentinel Dome, and Yosemite Falls!