I know this would be an unforgettable trip. 3 days, we have seen and experienced beauties the nature has to offer. From the glacier to the ocean. The trail (Hoh River Trail) is 37 miles round trip. We camped two nights, spent about 50 hours on the trail.

We came back at around 2am, July 4th and spent the next day writing the travel log and handling pictures. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do and please bear with my broken English. No language or picture can really capture the beauty of the nature anyway!

Knowing that we only had 9.1 easy miles to hike and we’d be out of the trail in at most 5 hours, we felt so relaxed although the legs were still a little sore. I woke up about 6 in the morning and stayed in the sleeping bag listening to the river flowing beside us. Then I heard some sound of brushing the grass as well as the sound of a deer. I opened the door of the tent and saw a beautiful small deer running away from me. I hope I didn’t interrupt her breakfast :). The sound of the deer reminded us about the joke “呦呦鹿鸣，荷叶浮萍”.

Without time pressure, we took our time making breakfast. We broke camp and left at around 9am. There was a couple who camped on the island. They came up to us and asked us permission to take our site. They would take that whole day resting. I’d agree this is a nice place to spend a whole day doing nothing but resting.

It was pretty much shining all the time at this elevation. Although it was a little hot, but much better than the cold and wet weather the day before. We were a little slow for the first 2 hours. But we decided to speed up and finish it as quickly as possible. Yinan’s pack was a lot lighter with most of the foods gone and I was carrying all the water. So we were letting her setting the pace. We finished the last 5.7 miles in only 2 hours.

Finally we were back to the parking lot where we started off at around 1:15pm. Away from civilization for more than two days, all the people and the car looked so amiable. After unloading the pack, I felt so light and agile. We got changed and picnicked with the two kids we met. I was so glad that we brought a watermelon with us in the trunk.

After lunch, we headed Ruby Beach. I guess Yinan was tired. She felt asleep as soon as we hit the road. It’s a very nice sandy beach on the coast. I took off shoes and socks and walked in the water, enjoying the warm sunshine and salty breeze. Generally I think hihway 101 in WA is not as scenic as its OR section. But this spot is really a nice beach.

3 days, 37 miles and 5000 feet up and down. We have seen the grandeur glacier, a wild bear, cute deer and the beautiful sky painted with stars. Now we are laying on the beach enjoying the Pacific. “It’s a beautiful life”, quoting Ace of Base.

We drove to Port Angeles and had a wonderful dinner there. If I recall correctly, the restaurant (Crabhouse, at US101 and Lincoln) is where I had a lunch 4 years ago. I ordered a crab cake and Yinan had Salmon. Their New England style clam chowder was so yummy! Every restaurant in Port Angeles makes terrific seafoods! We left Port Angeles at 8:30pm and drove along US101. It was one day before the 4th of July but people were already celerating. It was like a fireworks show all along US101. Now I have driven every mile of US101 in Washington and Oregon, and also down to Eureka in California. I was a little tired and sleepy so I let Yinan take the wheel for an hour. I guess she was speeding while I was sleeping :P, since we got home before 2am. I thought it’d take 6 hours.

We woke up at around 6:30am. The damn watch stopped working. It reset instead of alarming at 6am. So the time on the watch is 5 hours behind. It’s probably the battery. Anyway, I guess we need to get a good sport watch. 7am in the morning, cold and wet. We broiled some water to make chocolate milk and had some cereal. It was kinda painful, wet everywhere, no place to sit down. We broke camp and started off at around 8:30am. Glacier Meadows is 2.3 miles from Elk Lake. But this section is not as easy. It is rocky and steep. The rain made the trail very slippery. I frequently had to stop and wipe the fogged glasses too. It almost took us two hours to get up to the meadows. There is a ranger station, which looks like a big tent. We met two rangers there, a guy and a girl. They told us the Blue Glacier is only about 1 mile up and suggested us leave the gears. We left the pack in the emergency shelter and all our foods up on the bear wire. After a snack break, we took off with the small pack with some water and a camera. The small pack is attached to my Osprey Cresent 75 backpack. I can detach it and use it as a separate pack. It proved to be very useful under such situations.

The last section was even harder. There is basically no trail. One has to make their way on the gravel and rocks. But it was almost snow free. It really amazed me that there is even a dumpster near the top of the ridge. We took a break and had some water near the dumpster and met a couple coming down. They told us we were only several yards away from the top. When we made it to the top of the ridge, it was very foggy and cloudy. But we were able to have a gimpse of the glacier! We stayed about half an hour and the clouds come and go. There was a window of about 2-3 minutes when we can clearly view the whole glacier. We were totally astonished by the view! The glacier is only several hundreds of feet away, down the ridge. It looks like an ocean, only it’s still. We can clearly see how the glacier crushed the rocks, formed the gravels and shaped the mountains. We can clearly see big cracks on the mountain carved by the glacier. We sat there, listening to the glacier river flowing underneath the ice and the sound of cracking ice. The cracking sound was so close, it sounded like thunderstorms, echoing in the valley. I guess this isn’t something you can see and hear in everyday life. We have witnessed the ice that has not melt for millions of years. That thought really thrilled me. How small human beings are compared to the grandeur of the nature! We were so excited and satisfied. That 2 minutes were worth the whole trip! We finally made it to the top! I wasn’t able to get a very clear shot of the glacier though, it was really foggy. But again, nothing really captures the beauty of the nature, who cares about good pictures?

On our way down, we met the two rangers who were doing some gardening :). They looked very happy and enjoying. We casually chatted for a couple of minutes. We told them we were heading OGS that day and the girl told us she was heading there too. But we didn’t meet her later that day. We left the Glacier Meadows at around 1pm. As usual, downhill is always painful. There is a very steep section with very loose dirt and gravel. It was such a pain going down. The pack raises the center of weight dramatically and shifts it to the back. It makes it so hard to balance.

About 10 minutes after taking off from the Glacier Meadows, while we were walking on a flat section, Yinan suddenly stopped in front of me after a sharp turn. I can’t see ahead since it’s a turn. So I asked her if there was some people coming toward us and she was trying to make way for them. “No, it’s a bear”, replied her. I thought she was kidding and laughed. “No, I am serious, look there”. I followed the direction she was pointing to a creek about 50 meters away. Geez, it WAS a black bear! A big one. I hesitated for one second trying to recall what one should do when seeing a bear. I felt my adrenaline rushing to the throat. Then we decided we should keep talking loud. So we did. The bear turned around and we had an eye contact. That look was scary. I guess he was as surprised as we were and he freaked too. He then quickly ran away along the creek. We checked again and made sure he was not in sight. Then I led the way and approached the creek carefully. We tried to ford the creek as quickly as possible. This is the creek where we decided to get water from. The bear incident of course resulted in our being low on water. We always bring more water than needed though, so it was not really a serious problem. For one second, I thought of taking out my camera and shoot, but the bear was very quick and I can’t possibly catch it. It takes a lot of effort to get the 45 pound pack down and take out my Canon Digital Rebel and mount the lens. We were amazed how agile the bear was. He was definitely not like any bear we have seen in the zoo. I now realized how important it is to keep a point-n-shoot lightweight camera handy. A Canon S is probably a good choice.

We got back to Elk Lake and took a lunch break. It was about 3:30 when we left Elk Lake and we were quite confident we can make it to OGS before dark. Downhill was still painful. When we passed the Hoh river bridge at 13.1, we stopped and took several pictures.  

We were tired and legs were sore at this point. But we knew the rest of the trail would be a lot easier. It would be just a matter of time. We rushed a little bit and finally arrived OGS at around 6:30. We met a group of young people there chatting with the ranger whom we met the previous day at the visitor center. He pointed us the camp sites and off we went. It was not too late so we were able to grab a site on the river bank, with a very good view and easy access to water.

It had been a tough day. We took off the boots and put on slippers and sat down on a big log, enjoying the river view and warm breeze. It felt like heaven. No 5-star hotel is comparable. After I was able to get up and walk around again, we set up the tent and began cooking. When Yinan was preparing cooking stuffs, I managed to make a camp fire. The twigs were not easily flammable. But we came up with a good idea. We tore a paper towel and poured some oil from the canned fish. The fish was very oily and we didn’t want the oil anyway. It turned out to be very effective. We were able to set the twigs on fire. We huddled around the fire and took time cooking. Suddenly life is so enjoyable! While we were having dinner, the ranger came to check out all the campers. We chatted for a while. It was a pleasant conversation. He was very nice and friendly. He would tell us all about the park and the wild lives. We told him about the bear and he was obviously glad to hear about our story. They are also supposed to record such incidents to keep track of bear activities in the park. I always wonder how the lives of the park rangers would be. They often have to go so many miles into the wilderness on such rough trails, clear the logs, maintain the trail and clean the ranger station. What kind of passion and determination does it take to keep doing all these for years?! Their lives are simple and natural and I believe their souls are free. They enjoy the gifts from the nature more than any of us does.

I quickly fell asleep after one day’s hike. I was woken up by the thirst and got out of the tent. It was a clear sky up there and the milky way was so clear. This was the most beautiful star sky I had ever seen. The Deneb (alpha Cyg, 织女) and Altair (alpha Aquila, 牛郎) were so bright, separated by the milky way.

I got up at around 8 in the morning. After some breakfast and coffee at the motel, we headed the Hoh Visitor Center. We got a backcountry permit from the ranger whom we would meet again the next day at Olympus Guard Station. We studied the trail in more details and roughly planed to camp at OGS (9.1) the first night and Happy Four (5.7) the second night, although we later deviated from the original plan. The ranger was very nice and patient explaining all kinds of issues to us.

After getting the permit, we put on the already packed backpacks and started off my first backpacking trip. Although I have done some day hikes and are quite confident, even with the Half Dome hike, but I know backpacking would be a lot different. My pack was 45 pounds. I was not sure how that load would affect the hiking. And I was not sure how my strength would be the next day. I was a little nervous and excited at the same time.

As we expected, the first part of the trail is quite flat, even a little boring without too many exciting points. We started off at around 11am and had some lunch at 1pm. We arrived OGS at about 4pm without a lot difficuties. There are several muddy spots and creeks to ford, but generally OK. There is a creek about half a mile before OGS which imposed some confusion. We spent some time trying to figure out a way to get across. There was a bunch of guys on their way out and having a break there. One guy pointed us a big log and told us it is the easiest way. It is still hard. The log is too big. We can not possibly get up with full packs. I had to climb up without the pack and had Yinan lift up the packs and hand to me. I also had to help her up. The log is also slippery. But we finally made across it.

There is a log cabin at OGS, which is the ranger station.The whole place is a big and nice meadow by the river. It looks like a very good site for camping. But we figured it’d be too early to camp. We had to find a way to kill the rest of the day. We also kinda wanted to save some work for the next day, which would be tough, because the last 5 miles are the hardest part. So we studied the map a bit and decided to head for Elk Lake at 15.1 and 2600 feet high.

The next several miles are still not that tough, untill about 13 miles into the trail, after the Hoh River Bridge. BTW, the bridge is fantastic. It hangs hundreds of feet above the river gorge and one can have a very open view of the Hoh River. I wonder how did they build the bridge in the first place.

The trail gets a lot tougher after the bridge. The elevation begins to climb quickly. After 6 hours of hiking with the heavy load, the climbing becomes hard. Yinan got exhausted very soon. I had to encourage her by promising breaks at certain times and counting minutes to break times :). She is always like this, not very good in the earlier part of the trail, and no one can catch her up in the later part.

We finally made to Elk Lake at around 8pm. There were already some people there. This isn’t a very pleasant place to camp, probably because of the elevation. It’s hard to find a flat place. It’s shady and cold. The closest place to get water is a very muddy creek. The mud merged half of my boots. My boots and pants got very dirty. The weather was not very nice either. It was freezing with the wet shirts on. I got changed but it was still cold. The sun should have not set yet but totally blocked by the clouds. We set up the tent and cooked. By the time we finally were able to get something hot to eat, it was already pretty dark. We tried to finish the dinner quickly and hang all the foods up on the bear wire. It began to rain soon after we got into the tent. It kept drizzling for almost the whole night. Fortunately our Marmot tent proved to be very strong and warm. My down sleeping bag also helped a lot keeping me warm.