Day 67 (July 22) – Hurricane Ridge

At Mt. Rainier we took our first hike in the snow.  Today at Olympic we took our first hike in the clouds!  We drove up to Hurricane Ridge to hike and see the view.  On the way up, the fog was so thick, we could see about 10 yards in front of our truck.  We went through three tunnels that were sort of spooky.  It was foggy in the tunnels and at the far end you could just see white haze.  When we got to the Visitor’s Center, the fog had lifted a bit so you could see the meadow and some green hills beyond the VC.  The mountains were mostly hidden by clouds.  We went in and got hiking info and looked in the gift shop.  Then we hiked the Hurricane Hill trail (3.2 mi round trip).  This trail had a pretty swift elevation gain of 750 feet.  That part was a little tough.  We saw beautiful wildflowers, marmots, deer and fog, lots of fog.  By the time we got to the top, we were hiking in the fog and couldn’t see much beyond the edge of the ridge.  I’ve got some fun pictures to prove it!  The flowers were worth the whole hike to me.  Mt. Rainier is know for its flowers, but they had so much snow this year that the ground was still trying to thaw out, so flowers were in early stages.  Here the flowers are a little further along in their season – so pretty and colorful.

We went back to the VC for the girls to buy two little stuffed animals they had been thinking about from our earlier peek in the gift shop.  By the time we got back upstairs and were ready to eat lunch, it was raining pretty hard.  Brad ran out and got our food and we grabbed an indoor picnic table.  (I’ll bet these come in handy a lot.)  After lunch, we watched a park film.  I think it might have really been a filmstrip from 1979.  Then we headed back down the foggy road toward Port Angeles.  I’m so glad I took pictures at the VC when we got there this morning, because after our hike it was so foggy you couldn’t even see the meadow behind the VC!  We had planned to leave tomorrow, but may stay here another night to try to see the mountains.

We drove on in to Port Angeles to find a couple of bookstores Brad had looked up.  We stopped at Goodwill and bought a few things.  Then we restocked the girls on books (used book store: Anne of Green Gables books 3, 4, 5, and 7!) and I got an Audubon wildflower book for $8.  We were able to turn in a few of the girls books for credit.  I think all Brad got was a coffee mug.  At Goodwill.  Oh well.  It was rainy most of the time and rainy back at camp.  We ate a quick supper (it wasn’t raining then) and got to bed early.  Lots of reading time for those new books.
Hurricane Hill Hike