Dan and Cloudie's Most Excellent Adventure

After weeks and weeks of working weekends I finally had one off. I wanted to do something fun and get away to celebrate my freedom. My friend Dan, who is coincidentally from Pennsylvania, and I decided to take a trip to the coast. Neither of us had seen the wilderness beaches, he hadn't seen the rainforest and I hadn't seen Hurricane Ridge (probably one of the most visited sites in the Olympic National Park).

We set off on Saturday morning bound for the wilderness beaches. We started out with 3rd beach which requires a hike of less than 2 miles but we were greeted by a very private, secluded beach with gigantic rocks in the ocean. We basked in the sand and sunlight. It was so warm that I walked around in a tank top. That was likely the last time my shoulders will see the sun till next summer.

I'd heard word that 1st Beach was the best of the three so we set off for that next in order to arrive by low tide. It took some searching to find this beach since there wasn't much signage. We found a parking lot overlooking a beach and some surfer dudes confirmed that we were at 1st beach. I was pretty let down, what had everyone been talking about? 3rd was way better than this and I was now wishing we'd spent more time back at 3rd beach. But we walked down away from all the people and had a nice lunch on the beach while watching the surfers. We marveled at the white pelicans nesting on a little island right off the beach, there were probably hundreds.

We moved onto 2nd beach last which was short hike to the water. This was completely different than the other two. Beautiful, very wide and flat with massive rocks protruding from the sea, most likely set there by glacial activity. I'm sure there is some great tidepooling to be had there, we mostly saw anemones and ochre stars. The sun was lower here and we had to keep on all our layers, there'd be no sunning here.

Since I'm still in the process of accumulating backpacking gear so we car camped at Mora campground which was quite lovely, a dense lush green forest. We were able to find a nice spot and quickly pitch the tent before heading to Rialto Beach for sunset.

The next morning we headed out bound for the Hoh Rain Forest nearly 1.5hr away. We stopped in Forks, where the Twilight books/movies are set, on the way for some donuts and an egg sandwich. Once we got to the Hoh we walked on two trails I hadn't yet traveled, one mossy and one near the river. Unlike my last visit to the Hoh where I had to constantly sidestep throngs of tourists, this was pretty tranquil and Dan and I had most of the trail to ourselves. After over an hour walking around we decided it was time to head to Port Angeles, i.e. Hurricane Ridge.

Dan has been to Hurricane Ridge several times so he knew the trail that would provide amazing views - the Hurricane Hill trail. The trail was uphill for about a mile and we saw people of all ages hiking up to the top. From above I was able to see for miles, the mountain range and some towns below and it all seemed bigger than I had imagined in my head. The sun was shining and Dan and I rested on the rocks with our snacks. "We did it!"

What a wonderful way to spend my first weekend off and with good company. Hooray for our most excellent adventure! Thank you for being such a great travel buddy Dan! Pictures are of 3rd beach, 2nd beach, Rialto Beach, Trail of Mosses in the Hoh, Hurricane Ridge viewed from Hurricane Hill peak.