Sara and I go on our first camping trip since returning from our boat trip to Alaska. We go on several hikes - one of them over 6 miles - and find a new way into the Olympic National Park.
10/13/2023
Sara has been very excited to go van camping again - we haven’t been in over a year with the prep for and then going on our boat trip. This weekend was our weekend - Sara was off on Friday so decided to leave on Friday morning and come back Saturday evening. Our location of choice was Dosewallips State park and the Dosewallips river valley near Brinnon, Wa.
Our first trip in over a year was not without it’s hiccups - we forgot Oakley’s leash and had to use a shoelace… I guess I’ll be hiking in my other shoes!
While we hadn’t been to this particular campsite, we have been to some in the same area and there were some fun hikes to be found. We decided on the Dosewallips river hike - which was quite picturesque in the fall, Angela was jealous!
The hike started off on an old road, which had been converted into a trail after too many washouts and had been slowly converted into a trail as wilderness reclaimed the edges of the road over time. About an hour and a half in, we entered the Olympic National Park. I had no idea we were this close… I am of course a huge fan of national parks obviously, and the Olympic National park in particular so this was a cool find.
I told Sara my brother’s rule about getting a mile from the trail head and being completely alone - since nobody makes it that far. She decided we should have a real adventure and go 3 miles out (and 3 miles back). She was very proud of making it to the three mile mark.
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Our first hike was done - It was about 3p, so we headed off to our campsite for the evening. There was a short trail (1.5 mile loop) at the campsite which we did to kill some time before dinner. By the end of the day, my hand was killing me from the shoelace leash - I guess I learned my lesson.
Sara and I grilled some hot dogs over the fire for dinner, with a side salad and smores(!) for desert. Sara gave it two thumbs up.
10/14/2023
The next morning we stopped off near Port Ludlow to do a quick one mile hike to see some falls and an interpretive trail about logging in the area and how old growth forests recover from logging that happened almost 80 years ago.
When we got to Kingston there was a 1 hour wait for the ferry so we got some crepes from this place we like and decided to checkout the Kingston Yacht club. It was all closed up but the sign on the window made it seem like Friday was the night to be there. We got some info from the harbormaster on how guest moorage works for when we come back on our boat (which hopefully we will some day).
And then we were off to home!