The Awesome National Park!

I have never used the adjective “awesome” in any of my communications for a couple of reasons:  President Bush used it so often and that alone made it a useless word.  But the main reason is that it is such a powerful word that almost nothing can measure up to its meaning:  overwhelming, grand, breathtaking, splendid, tremendous, remarkable, amazing, awe-inspiring, astounding, humbling.  That is until my son and I spent 5 days at the Olympic National Park – It was AWESOME!

The Olympic National Park is so large and has so much variety of natural wonders that it would take years to fully explore it.  We only had the opportunity to explore the Sol Duc River Valley; a small portion of the Elwha River Valley;  the Hoh River Valley and the Hoh Rain Forest;  the Kalaloch beaches on the Pacific Coast ; and of course, Hurricane Ridge were we made a 3 and a half mile hike up to Hurricane peak (hill) at 5757 feet.  We also made side trips to the Makah, Ozette, and Quileute Indian Reservations on the Pacific coast.  While at the Makah Reservation, we made a short one mile hike through the dense forest to Cape Flattery, the northwest most point in the U.S.  Of course we could not leave without having the famous Quileute smoked salmon.

Here are some pictures of the park:

The Pacific Coast Part of the Park

 Sea Life at Low Tide

 Our Campsite at the Beach

 Adrian with a friend catching a Berry Jelly Fish

  At the Hoh Rain Forest

 At the Hoh Rain Forest

  At the Hoh Rain Forest

The Mountain Side of the Park 

A view of part of the 3 mile hiking path

Mt Olympus

 
On Hurricane peak with Mt Olympus in background

The deer were very tame

The Sol Duc River Valley 

Crescent Lake near entrance to Sol Duc River Valley

Sol Duc Campground

 Adrian walking across fallen tree

Cape Flattery Most Northwester Point in U.S.

If you look close you can see the Chinese Coast about 5000 miles away behind Adrian