Wilderness beckons

Once in a while, it is good to take a look back, remember all those who were part of this incredible journey that is life and recollect the times spent together. Sometimes, all we can do is remember. Sometimes, we are fortunate enough to recreate those times with the very same people. After some planning to the minutest detail by my “original” roommates in LA living in different cities on the west coast, our first trip together to the Olympic national park materialized. We spent nearly two years together, but it was only now that we all could afford the time and money for this. My participation in the preparation was so little that I did not even know which state our destination was located in. I did suggest that we go there based on a colleague’s opinion that it was one of the best national parks he has ever been to and there ended my contribution. It probably showed the amount of trust I had in my friends’ discretion or I did not care how it would turn out, as long as we were all spending time together. One of us backing out a week before the trip was a disappointment, but the rest of us had to make the best of the trip.

Catching an early morning flight only added to my sleeplessness, mostly due to excitement and sometimes due to unfinished tasks at work. Trying to “work” from the airport was a part of the plan too. One friend from Seattle and another from LA joined us at the Portland International airport. We took off about five to six hours after landing. Our drive to the city of Port Angeles where we would be staying for the next two days lasted a little more than four hours with a pit stop in between at Tumwater falls. We walked along the train in the park, a treat to the eyes with beautiful flowers and plants. The upper, middle and lower waterfalls were huge, as opposed to the letdown that we expected as we got off the car.

I kept my eyes glued to the window as it got greener and greener on either side of the road. The breathtakingly beautiful snow-clad mountains announced the arrival of the national park. We arrived in the city of Port Angeles sometime after 8 on Friday evening, being deceived by the daylight that was still around as we finished dinner at a Thai place. The lovely, well decorated house that we were going to stay at let us in only after a bit of a struggle to figure out how exactly to do that. We awed again and again, as we stepped inside the house and then into the three distinctly colorful rooms wondering which one to choose for ourselves. Some of us were still energetic to explore everything the house had to offer, play some board games et al, but I just wanted to hit the bed after a couple of nights of little to no sleep, not even bothering to join the others who shopped for some essentials soon after dinner. Little did I know that this was going to be another one of those sleepless nights. I was up and about in the morning nevertheless, trying to capture the snow-covered peaks of the mountains on my phone camera.

Out of everything there was to see in the northern Olympic peninsula, we headed to the Hoh rainforest, named so after the native American tribe of that area, first. The drive had us gasping with delight at every turn, for a while along the lake Crescent whose water looked like we could pick Emeralds and Sapphires from it. The fact that it was the start of a long weekend did not prevent us from getting a parking spot as soon as we arrived after about two hours of starting. The map of the park that we received at the visitor center has a poster of sorts behind it, beautifully depicting the forests, mountains, beaches and the wildlife of what seemed to me the most beautiful place I had visited in the USA so far. I quietly tucked it away once everyone had a look at it. It was rather surprising that it was not as crowded as the splendor deserved. Hoh rain forest is the only one among four in the Olympic Peninsula to have the distinction of being a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve. Even a couple of the shortest hiking trails took us to depths of the forest where every inch was covered with plants. Mosses, ferns and other plants grow on trees giving this temperate rain forest a haunting, sometimes eerie charm. We seemed to have picked the right time to be there when it was not raining but still rewarded us with the lush greenery that was rather overwhelming. We picked a spot by the Hoh riverside to devour food that one of us had painstakingly prepared a day before our trip.

I got a chance to show off my substandard driving skills as we drove to Ruby beach, one of the many coastal escapes in the national park. Unlike the fancy beach towns in California advertising beach-view restaurants and a lot of activities, this was rather untouched where the waves caressed the roots of the tall trees that stood towering over the sand. We climbed up some rocks on the beach and then crossed a stream to see a small island covered with plants. My friends’ fetish for the twilight series led us to the towns of Forks and the village named La push. Our drive that we hoped would end in a beach finally ended at an eatery. Having wasted some time driving around, we headed to what would be the highlight of the day, the cape flattery. Only when my colleague said how beautiful second (there is first, third and fourth too) beach is, did I regret this a little bit. Entering our destination as Neah bay in the Google maps app was not enough and it took us a while to figure out that where we wanted to be, the Northwestern most point of the contiguous United States was cape flattery. I wondered why it is called that, considering it was so beautiful that no amount of praise for it could sum up to flattery. We hiked down to the viewpoints, just in time to get some clicks of the islands and the caves against the gorgeous panorama to the south and the north respectively. The final viewpoint overlooked the Tatoosh island, housing a lighthouse whose silhouette was all that we could discern at that time of the day. The drive back was long and lonely, with a few cars passing by now and then. I fell asleep quickly to wake up only after many hours of deep sleep.

We were finally on our way to the mountains. The park is named after the Olympic mountains which greeted us when we entered this area about a day and a half ago. The green mountains with just enough snow coating their peaks looked evermore captivating as we approached the top of Hurricane ridge, only seventeen miles south of Port Angeles. From the visitor center, we drove up to the start of the Hurricane hill trail. Some discussion regarding whether we should really climb up did not deter us and we were on our way up the 3.2 mile (roundtrip) trail with some snow along the way without any water on us. It was more a climb than a hike and it drained us completely, but the view up there was astounding to say the least. We could see the strait of Juan de Fuca and mountains in British Columbia, Canada. All I wanted was to stay there forever, breathing the air that seemed to cleanse my insides. Deer dotted the scene as we scrambled to get the perfect photo.

We grabbed a quick bite for lunch and set out to enjoy the calm waters of lake Crescent. Having seen most of it on our drives to and forth the other spots, we only spent a few minutes by its banks, the hot sun not tempting us anymore. Marymere falls was our next destination. I found the hike, little longer than a mile and a half through the woods more beautiful than what it led to. We sat by the lake again, this time gorging ourselves on sandwiches that my friends had made in the morning. We deviated from our plan slightly, deciding to forgo Sol Duc falls for an evening of rest and barbecue. The barbecue made way to just cooking food in the oven because of a dearth of firewood. I remember going to bed just to get some rest before I could eat and ended up sleeping till morning. I ate the leftovers for breakfast. We started our drive to Multnomah falls near Portland around 9 in the morning and stopped at a diner on the way for lunch. We were all filled with sadness that the trip was ending, but made the most of the drive, playing some car games and so on. My second time at the falls was rather disappointing, since the path leading up to the bridge where I had enjoyed a closer view was closed and there seemed to be lesser water too.

We stopped at the Powell’s bookstore and then at Voodoo donut in Portland on our way to the airport. The bookstore is what paradise would look like in my mind. The little time that we had was just enough for me to pick out a couple of books and some souvenirs. We spent the next two to three hours dropping one of us who had an early flight at the airport, driving away from it without realizing it was a mistake, getting back on the way, returning the car, getting some food and making some customary calls to those who mattered.

We kept ourselves busy on the flight back playing Pictionary on the napkins that they gave us, reminding me how I have always been artistically challenged. The busy long weekend traffic at the airport made sure I spent another hour or so there waiting for my ride. All I could think of was if it would be possible for me to move to Seattle from where the Olympic and a couple of other national parks would be easily accessible whenever I felt the need to get away.  Even though the distant dream of living in the woods atop a mountain with a stream nearby would remain a dream for a long time, I would be able to see such a place whenever I wished.