HOH HOH HOH!

Since we couldn’t ferry over to Victoria, we left Port Angeles and continued our counterclockwise tour of the Olympic Peninsula, following US 101.  Yep, the same 101 that runs right through L.A. back home.  Only there it’s four or more lanes each way;  here, it’s only two, and a lot more scenic.  This is just the short stretch between Port Angeles and Lake Sutherland.

Just beyond that lies beautiful Crescent Lake.

It was getting close to lunchtime, so we decided to check out a campground on the north side of the lake (over there, in the pic above).  The road turned out to be a little rustic

with a questionable bridge.  Slow and steady does it.

 

The campground proved to be a bust, as it was nowhere near the lake shore, had very tight and not-so-level sites in dense forest like you see above.  Scratch that one.  However, we kept on going along the north road and the jouncing was worth it.

The water, as you can see, was very clear.  The only fish we spotted were guppy size.  101 hugs the shoreline on the other (south) side of the lake, so there was this constant whooshing sound of the cars and trucks going along.  Actually, it sounded like a distant waterfall. 

Both Loni and I have vivid memories of our 1977 trip to these parts, and of camping by the shore of a lake.  But neither Sutherland (which I think it was) nor Crescent (which Loni opts for) fit either of our minds’ eyes.  Senior confusion, I guess, or maybe that campground no longer exists.

After lunch, we reversed course and trundled our way back to the highway.  Along the way, our solar controller started acting up, making clicking noises and turning off and on.  Great.  We’re headed for a couple of nights without any hookups, depending on our battery power, in the Hoh Rain Forest.

This also was deja vu, having been our other principal stop we made in Olympic Park on our old trip.  Again, it wasn’t like we remembered, as a lot of trees have fallen in the last thirty years, and things didn’t seem as dense and mysterious.  Regardless, our experience this time was just as good.  For one, we got what we both feel is the single most scenic campsite we have ever had.  Yeah, I know, this is becoming a trip of superlatives, but in this case it was earned.  The park was virtually empty, with only three other campers besides us in the whole place the first night, and nobody but us the second.  Anyway, the site was a back-in, and our rear picture window faced directly back at the oncoming Hoh River, which made a course change only twenty feet behind our rig, then running down the driver’s side only a dozen feet away.  This is the late afternoon view after we had just pulled in.

 

There wasn’t much light left to do any hiking, so we strolled around the empty campground, checked out the visitor center (closed for the season), and settled in for a dark and isolated night, lulled to sleep by the steady roar of the river.  Yes!

The next day brought some clouds and mist in the mountains, but also provided this spectacular view of what we saw from the driver’s side of the rig from our site.  It just doesn’t get any better than this.

We bundled up, taking our rain gear just in case, and set out on the paths through the rain forest.

The paths are nicely compacted, with a lot of gravel in them, so the walking was easy.  We saw a lot of huge, old-growth downed trees, which probably explains why it didn’t seem as dense as before. 

A nifty bit of nature that we saw time and again was the use of these downed trees as “nurse” trees for new growth.  As they slowly decompose, new trees use them as a base and feed off their nutrients.  Over time, the “nurse” gets more and more decomposed and eventually disappears, leaving the piggyback trees standing on their root fingers. 

The forest is not only fed by rain and rivers, but by springs that are all over the place, producing crystal clear water that is home to beautiful underwater and surface plant life.

Not to be outdone by the flora, the fauna also made appearances, like this fearsome monster, the dreaded

banana slug.  I also caught sight of this little guy, who very patiently continued to pose for me.

I’ll leave it to the bird-watcher types to figure out what it is.  Whatever, it was cute and absolutely fearless of us while sitting on that branch right on the water. 

Our circuitous route through the forest brought us out just upriver from our campsite.

No question, though, what was the most impressive forest denizen we encountered.  We were sitting in the rig having a quiet read when Loni looked up and said, “Oh, my goodness!”  Fifteen feet out the passenger side of the rig, there he was:

A ten point bull, casually munching away on the lush grass.  I slid the window open very slowly to get these shots before he slowly strolled away.  We had seen signs everywhere, on every trail, at the visitor center, on the check-in board, to STAY AWAY at least 100 feet from the elks, as they were extremely dangerous.  Given the size of this guy, I agree.  I wouldn’t want him charging me.  He was at least five feet at the shoulder, like a long-legged bison.

Just before leaving, I couldn’t resist the old-growth phone booth.  Hoh Hoh Hoh!