A bouncy bridge to get us across the creek.
Considering how much annual precipitation Olympic National Park gets every year, — Mount Olympus (at 7,980 feet) receives 200 inches a year — it should come as no surprise that our day today was very water-oriented.
We started at the visitor center which was actually open today. This is the first national park we have visited that has had a lot closed due to the season/weather and we were surprised on Tuesday when we tried to visit the main visitor center for the park only to find that it was closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
We got there soon after it opened and asked right away about their Junior Ranger program. We got the packet and found out that this Saturday is National Junior Ranger Day at all the national parks! There will be all kinds of activities here at Olympic from 10-3. We have decided to stay an extra day so that Elise can participate. This visitor center has a neat Discovery Room just for kids and we spent a lot of time in there investigating animal skulls and rocks and creating a “run” for the salmon so they could successfully navigate upstream to lay their eggs.
We finally got out the door and headed west for our first adventure of the day — hiking to Marymere Falls. The trail was 1.75 miles round trip on a pretty easy path through the lowland forest. Almost immediately we came upon a black-tailed deer munching grass on the side of the path.
Olympic National Park deer have talent — they ride bikes!
Once we got past her, Elise took off down the path and stayed ahead of us most of the time. Her imagination just takes off when we go on walks like this and she was playing some game or another, completely content.
It didn’t take long to get to the 90-foot waterfall. We haven’t seen a good one since the partially frozen one we saw in New Hampshire December 2006. We enjoyed it for a while and then headed back. Along the way Elise couldn’t resist, and Bobby became the recipient of a few snowballs on the back since there were piles of the stuff along the way.
At the top of the waterfall there is a tree about to come over the edge.
Checking out the falls.
From there, we headed to the Sol Duc Hot Springs. We were hoping the setting would be a fairly natural one like Big Bend, but discovered that a resort had been built up near the springs. The springs occur somewhere in the mountains nearby and are piped in to three different pools. They are the Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear of hot springs pools. One pool is too hot (Papa Bear), one is too cold (the one that is not heated at all and was only 50 degrees! — Mama Bear) and one is just right (Baby Bear). We all tried the cold pool which was a complete shock to the system. It hurt so much! There were about 15 people there today and that seemed plenty to me, but as Bobby and I looked around we realized it must get very busy in the summertime. There are three lifeguard chairs in the pool area! We were very glad we came in the off-season.
Elise, the Sherpa, carrying the backpack while sporting her new hat.
These hot springs were long used by native peoples due to their comfortable, naturally occurring concrete steps and pretty tile work, as well as their naturally occurring indoor plumbing providing hot showers afterward.
We spent about an hour in the pools and finally got out when we were too light-headed to think clearly. Showers taken, we headed home to eat the beef stew Bobby had started in the crock pot this morning. Everyone has been drained by the heat (and sulfur!) of the water, so it is bedtime for ev…e…r…y…o…
This is Lake Crescent. The water has very little nitrogen in it so very little algae grows. The water is a beautiful color and very clear.
