Olympic National Park Hiking Adventure

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

Tags: Vacation in Sequim, Hiking the Olympic Mountains, Olympic National Park