Tubal Cain to Buckhorn Pass

Entering the Olympic National Forest

 A week ago, last Sunday, I was convinced to hike the Tubal Cain trail - this didn't take too much convincing since it was on my bucket list -- but then I found out it was 14miles. Well, okay, let's go for it. Sarah and her dog Keta, Sam and her boyfriend Kai, Carrie and myself set up at 8am for the trail head. We started at 9:45am in dense fog which ended up persisting the entire day, obscuring some, apparently, awesome views. The wildflowers didn't disappoint however, and I spent the entire trip as the caboose, lagging behind snapping photos. http://youtu.be/jqadhQK4uuY

This photo doesn't nearly do the meadow of flowers justice

The trails actually lead to some old mines, the Tubal Cain Mines, some of which are still in operation and you can take a side trail from the main trail to go explore them, we pressed on but some day, I'll return to check it out. There is also an old plane wreck that you can explore on a different side trail - we did neither and pressed on to Buckhorn Pass.  http://youtu.be/WaJPi28oTuY

Sub alpine flowers?

Once we got to the pass we ended up just sitting in the trail to eat lunch, there really wasn't any other convenient place and shivered, praying for the sun to come and warm us. We even resorted to wearing our extra pairs of socks on our hands. After 20minutes shivering and 7.2miles behind me, they decided, lets go a little further, much to my chagrin, I was feeling a little disgruntled about the 7.2 miles back already. But, I pressed on. We ended climbing up where there were patches of snow to a higher point and a few moments of wind pushed the fog away and we could sort of see some of the mountains around us. 

Snowy mountains in the background

You can see my friends on the trail - gives a little perspective  of the largeness of this wilderness

Go away fog - come on sun!

Hikers: me, Carrie, Kai, Sam, Sarah and even Keta the dog!

Sarah had done this hike a few days prior and had clear views, why not us. After another 30min of playing around on the snow, Sam declared it was time to go back down, hooray! The trip back felt like forever and probably over an hour from the end of it, it straight up started raining. Not a light PNW mist, but rain. We were all soaked and muddy by the time we reached the car. We calculated probably close to 16miles that day and I realized it was the longest hike I'd ever done.

We went over the Dungeness River several times, but mostly in the first  and last 2 hrs of this hike