Olympic Coast and Lake Quinault

[Aldercrest]

When we bought the van, we speculated about heading north up the coast for some winter camping and sight-seeing. Then my wife began reading the Twilight books, so we had to go to Forks, Washington. The books are set there, but it turns out the movies are all filmed within an hour or so of Portland. Anyhoo, we loaded up Vanna and headed north this weekend for a quick getaway. First night we stayed at Pacific Beach State Park after a lot of dark driving. Nothing particularly scenic there, and the light was too flat for ocean pics. After a long night with not much sleep (still working on the best arrangement with our 15-month-old), we continued north on Saturday morning.

Our first stop was "The Big Cedar" somewhere along the Olympic coast. Got a good shot of the van, but couldn't get a good shot of the tree.


Never fear, there was another big cedar! Number 1 was about 1/4 mile off the highway. The Duncan Cedar (#2) was about 4 miles off the highway. They didn't tell you this when you hit the gravel, but the sporty didn't care. The SUV ahead of us bugged out when they saw the van coming, though.


After a quick lunch in La Push, we hiked through the mist down to Third Beach. This is the start of a 17 mile hike south along the coast to the mouth of the Hoh River. Our round trip was 3 miles.


We visited some old friends in Forks, and then headed to Lake Quinault to spend night #2 at the Lake Quinault Lodge. I'll spare you photos of all the clearcuts in the areas outside the parks. For day 2, see the next post.

[Aldercrest]

Dawn was misty and beautiful after a night of deep sleep for us and our daughter.



The lodge was built in 1926 in just ten weeks for just $90,000. Lumber was cheap and plentiful, and the financing came from a mill owner. President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited in 1937 to see if the area should be a national park. It passed inspection, and Olympic National Park was formed in 1938.







We took another short hike through the rainforest, starting across the road from the lodge. Somehow we lucked out and got a beautiful day.





Just up the road from Lake Quinault, we passed the local version of a Sportsmobile.



Looks like there may be some work left to do!

Back south on 101 and over the Megler Bridge to Astoria. It was turning out to be a beautiful day.



The girl was getting fussy, so we made a sunset beach stop and stretched our legs.





The visit to Lake Quinault was great, and I can see heading back up for some hikes into the southern part of Olympic National Park. If we're heading for the beach, we'll stay closer to home, as the north Oregon coast has everything the Olympic coast has and is a lot closer. Hope you all enjoy the pics.

[jlrray]

Amazing!!!! That looks like my kind of a trip. Cold, but beautiful. Wish it was a whole lot closer.

Joe

[BroncoHauler]

Great write-up and pics, but my absolute favorite pic is the last one, the sunset, silhouette pic of your family.


Herb

[Psomaki]

Excellent pics! Those places are some of the reasons we live here!!

[jage]

Wonderful photos. Love the spiderweb and the one above it. But this:



This belongs in the annals of the Internet... not only is it total hoopty redneck scariness, but the people who built it saw fit to advertise their genius via some fine custom brushwork that almost puts the suspension to shame!

[BC]

I dunno Jage, that could be an old RB chassis under there, he might be wantin' to join the forum here any day now !

[jage]

Yesterday, I would have said, "A four-wheel drive van is a four-wheel drive van!" but today... not so much.

[Aldercrest]

We had to hang a u-turn in their driveway to get the photo. They were laughing at us as I pulled the camera out.

[Psomaki]

Originally Posted by jage

"not only is it total hoopty redneck scariness..."

Hey, Jage, you're thinking the wrong quadrant of our country. No rednecks up here - not enough sun! But scary vehicles with an attitude - you betcha!