Our special hiking adventure in the Olympic National Park
Hello again Sequim lovers,
The weather in sunny Sequim has been gorgeous ever since the beginning of July with blue skies and wonderful temperatures. Nights and early morning hours are little nippy for Hawaii expatriates. We love it and plan as many outdoor adventures as possible. Besides picking berries in Sequim, it's hiking the Olympic Mountains.
Well, here is our latest one. Our dear friend Bruce, a regular at the Sequim Aquatic Center just like us, told us many times to start one of those magnificent hikes from a hiking trail head area shortly before the entrance to the Olympic National Park leading to Hurricane Ridge. There was no cloud in the sky Sunday morning. We packed our lunch and water, drove to Port Angeles, from there to the trail head parking, studied the map with all the different hikes and decided for a 3.4 mile hike to Lake Angeles but missing the most important note strenuous hike.
We would find out pretty soon. The happy wanderers were pretty soon huffing and puffing and wondering whether it would go up that steep for hours. Taking little breaks and admiring the path through the woods, the bubbling noise of Angeles Creek along our way up and up into the mountains and deeper forest, we thought we can do this. Well, after some steep hill hiking for about two hours, we really met a person coming down the hill and asked him for some hikers advise. The lonely hiker told us that he had done the hike the second time within this week, that we had the toughest part behind us and it would take us just half an hour to make it to Lake Angeles, which would be worthwhile all the efforts. That sounded comforting and encouraging and we doubled our efforts.
Well, always be aware that there are different hikers categories. The lonely wanderer was obviously in the 
experienced half while we are Sunday wanderers. Believe it or not but it took us another full hour to make it finally to the lake, having half of our sandwich on the way to refuel our energy reserves. Here comes the good part. The scenery of Lake Angeles was from another world with sparkling lake waters around a beautiful fairy tale island in the middle, high forest covered cliffs all around the lake with dark blue skies behind and with the unusual stillness of nature, only interrupted by a few frogs croaking, some dragonflies buzzing around us and fish sending bubbles to the surface of the lake. We were beamed into another world, a lost one, which we city people have long forgotten. We took it all in for future memories.
It got later in the afternoon. We had to tackle the descend, as one does not want to get stuck in the middle of the forest with no cell phone connection available, which we had assumed would be so much easier. In some way it was but soon we noticed that we added to our sore hamstring and calf muscles some even tighter quad muscles. After about 5 hrs we made it back to our car, feeling each muscle in our body. Do not ask us how we are feeling 2 days later. Despite of stretching the recovery happens slowly. Whether we would do it again, we kind of doubt it but this hike will become a special place in our other hiking experiences. If you are not up for this challenge, make sure to check what the hike is rated at. With greetings from the Sequimers in Olympic National Park
Healthy Living in Sequim
Hi, everyone, the Sequimers are back. Last time, we mentioned the great outdoors in the Sequim area, which will be addressed all through our Sequim Town Blog, as that topic is much too big to be covered with one or two posts. What else attracted us to the Olympic Peninsula and Sequim in particular?
Sequim town and area is Berry Country
There are lots of organic farms and regular farms, which grow all kinds of berries during green season in addition to vegetables and other fruits. We tasted the first berries when we came visiting here last you end of September…sweet ripe blackberries everywhere! One did not even have to go to a farm. When you pick wild berries, just make sure that it is in an area where the country does not spray with weed controlling pesticides. Most places are safe to pick berries in Sequim.
Berries at the Sequim Supermarkets are not cheap. However, there are a lot of farms, which promote U-Pick all through the harvesting season. We just did a search in Google and there they were, nicely listed with address and hours and what berries at what months. We started picking berries with strawberries in early May, a month or so later the first raspberries were ripening (sometimes we went 2x a week for picking) and blueberries, which have become in the past few years a berry favorite with their most antioxidants content, followed soon. We were in berry heaven.
We picked the last blueberries a week ago. Checked yesterday with our favorite berry farm Graysmarsh Farm but all the blueberries were gone, as the farm had opened their fields for free picking and the birds picked probably the leftovers. Well, luckily there are tons of blackberries around us. They taste great and make a healthy food too. Again, if you have any questions, leave us a comment right here on our blog. You may also email us. We are happy to answer your Sequim questions. Stay healthy. The Sequimersp.s.Last remark for today about Sequim farms. A recent tendency shows that quite a number of farms got sold and turned into land for building houses or condos by developers. Old time Sequimers are not happy about this trend, not only that Sequim will lose its resources for farm produce but it will also lose its lovely small town ambience, which is the reason why people live here.
Our new relaxing and rejuvenating life in Sequim
Got to catch up first on the past few months before we start dealing with our present life. Remember we told you in our previous post that we moved to Sequim in January 06, and also included why we moved to Sequim. We must admit it was a big change for us people from Hawaii. However, most of the days proved to be sunny, as promised in all the Sequim visitors information materials and in online Sequim weather statistics. The sun came out some time during the day and if it was just peeking through a small "blue hole" in the sky for an hour or so.
Olympic Discovery Trail
As we are very active people, having been a stretch class teacher (Keoki) and a physical education teacher (Heidi) for most of our professional lives, the colder weather and somewhat crisp air did not stop us from getting on our bikes, all bundled up with anorak, gloves and caps. The Olympic Discovery trail rewarded us with the most amazing snow covered Olympic Mountain panoramas. We were at awe! OK, we never made it to Port Angeles on our bikes but the Sequim part of the discovery trail is plenty for a 1 to 2 hr bike ride.
Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center SARC
Another big attraction right from the beginning was the Sequim Aquatic Center which we had read a lot about and also got a short glimpse of during our vacation visit in September 05. When we became Sequim residents, we tried it out on a monthly basis. We liked it so much that we joined the club for an annual membership after two months. Now, it’s our second home. We got to know quite a number of nice people, so small talks between workouts are common. Be aware that there are a lot of "gray panthers" (Sequim is a town of retirees) but this shows that more and more people adopt a very active, healthy life style when getting older. Our regular visits to the fitness center (three times a week) are encouraging and energizing. We did miss those visits during the recent 10 day-maintenance closure. Now, things are back to normal. Everybody is happy again. Give your muscles and heart a great workout and relax in pool, sauna or Jacuzzi afterwards. How better can it get?!
Want to know more about our life in sunny Sequim, check back soon. Stay happy and healthy till next time.The Sequimers
p.s.Nearly forgot, Keoki is back to teaching his Easy Stretch class twice a week, at SARC. Read more about his Stretch for Health class If you are interested in purchasing his Easy Stretch video, send us an email to with subject "Easy Stretch Video" and we provide you with information. More Easy Stretch information and testimonials.
Why we retired in Sequim on Olympic Peninsula in Washington state?We are living in a blogger world now. I guess that's the best way these days to get the word out to family, friends and strangers about what's happening in people's lives. Here we go about our life. Ever heard of the town Sequim? Most people have not. Well, we moved here in January of 2006 in order to retire. Retire from where, you ask. From Hawaii we answer. How can somebody move from Hawaii to Washington state? We had lived there for 30 (husband) and myself for 15 years. We decided it's time for a change. We were able to sell our property and vacation rental business and move on with our lives. Feeling happy and free!Best places to retire?However, before we moved to Sequim, the biggest question was where to retire to? We boggled our minds with Thailand (too hot and tropical diseases), New Zealand (wonderful but they don't welcome the older folks, want to have 2 million NZ $ from immigrants, which we didn't have, plus still does not allow you to stay their all the time), Costa Rica was in the talks with all the American retirees (stories about safety and security issues were not really encouraging), San Diego was too expensive and so on and so forth. At that point, friends, who had moved from Hawaii to Portland, told us about the lovely small town of Sequim (means peaceful waters in Indian) surrounded by the the great panorama of the Olympic mountains and offering the splendid views of our so much loved Pacific Ocean!!! So, we we started our biggest research...about Sequim.Sequim research over the InternetNaturally, the Internet was our biggest resource. Luckily, one can find anything there from rainfall to real estate, from fitness center to health food stores. So, when we visited Sequim in fall 2005, we came prepared. We found a lot of information in the local publication Sequim Gazette. Had a list of houses for sale, knew all the things we wanted to check in Sequim town. And fell head over heels in love with this unbelievable retirement city. Bought a wonderful home 1 mile from Sequim town and 1 mile from John Wayne Marina, sold our Hawaii property and business and moved to Sequim beginning of 2006. Whether you believe it or not but we never regreted it one minute over the last 8 months. Stay tuned for further news and gossip on our wonderful life in Sequim One last thing...Sequim is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains and has an average annual rainfall of only 12" with a very moderate climate all year around. More about that later.
Our special hiking adventure in the Olympic National Park
experienced half while we are Sunday wanderers. Believe it or not but it took us another full hour to make it finally to the lake, having half of our sandwich on the way to refuel our energy reserves. Here comes the good part. The scenery of Lake Angeles was from another world with sparkling lake waters around a beautiful fairy tale island in the middle, high forest covered cliffs all around the lake with dark blue skies behind and with the unusual stillness of nature, only interrupted by a few frogs croaking, some dragonflies buzzing around us and fish sending bubbles to the surface of the lake. We were beamed into another world, a lost one, which we city people have long forgotten. We took it all in for future memories.
