I set a trip record yesterday (I am writing this on the following morning). I hiked 13.5 miles in Olympic National Park. I also managed to ride about 120 miles on the bike. It was a pretty full day. The previous record was set in Glacier National Park when Chris, Sean and I hiked the highline trail for a total of 12 miles.
The 13.5 miles was actually split up over 3 different trails. In the morning I hiked to Sol Duc falls by way of the Lover's Lane trail. Next I stopped by the Storm King ranger station and hiked the trail to Merrymere Falls. Finally I rode about 80 miles out to the coastal area of the park and hiked the Sand Point trail out to the Washington coastline. It was a really good day of hiking.
Although the ride out to the coastal area of the park took much longer than I had anticipated it was a very beautiful ride. Had I not done any hiking at all it still would have been a worthwhile trip. I rode along the Northern coast of Washington where I could see, smell and hear the ocean water. When I couldn't see the ocean I was riding through a corridor of cedar, fir and pine decorated with wildflowers of purple, pink, white and gold.
The trail to Sandpoint was interesting. It was 3 miles each way and nearly all of that 3 miles was covered with boardwalk. I'm sure that it was cool when it was originally constructed but yesterday it felt like I was hiking along the boardwalk of death. It was like you were playing Russian roulette. You never knew which board was going to snap in half with your next step. I did end up actually breaking one of the boards. Luckily I was only stepping on the board with my heel and I didn't go all the way through. The boardwalk was also fun in places where it was wet and covered with moss. On the way back I took a wrong step and nearly slid right off of the walkway.
As I got to the end of the trail you could start to see all of the fog rolling in off of the ocean and into the forest. For the last 50 yards or so of the hike there was a light drizzle as the passing clouds were scraped by the treetops. As soon as I got past the trees and onto the beach it stopped raining. I bet that it “rains” in those 50 yards of tree nearly 24 hours a day.
The beach was much different than I expected. It was foggy, rocky and piled up with dead wood that had washed ashore. I suppose that is how the early American explorers found most of the Northwestern beaches. I am just used to beaches with sunshine, warm clear water, and miles of sand. Even though I wouldn't describe the beach as pretty, it was still pretty cool to see.
I've seen some pretty interesting road signs in Washington. The first one that I noticed a couple of days ago and have seen just about everywhere since then is a sign than reads, “Motorcycles use extreme caution”. Although there is some humor in the fact that they are instructing the motorcycles and not the riders to use caution, the frequency with which the sign was used was more funny. There were spots that didn't seem to have any hazards at all that would have one of these signs up. In other spots there would be a small bump in the road and there would be a sign warning motorcycles to use extreme caution. I've probably seen 3 or 4 dozen of these signs driving through Washington. When they are that prevalent they begin to lose their meaning. They should just post one sign at every entrance to Washington warning bikers to extreme caution in the entire state.
Following the theme of over-caution with road signs, I saw another sign that read, “Warning: No Warning Signs Next 21 Miles”. They were so polite with their warning signs that they even warned you that there were no warning signs. Ironically, on the stretch of road that I rode yesterday, they were lying. Despite being warned that there would be no warning signs I was still warned to use extreme caution because I was on a motorcycle every couple of miles or so.
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