Washingon Day 3

Finally...we had the National Park experience today...and it was glorious!  A good day in a National Park always starts with getting on those hiking shoes, packing a picnic in preparation for being gone all day and filling the packs with water.  Then we took the long drive to Port Angeles where  just North over the Strait of Juan de Fuca you can see Canada.  Another hallmark of a National Park day involves going to the visitors center, getting the passport book stamped and getting the Jr. ranger books...check, check, check.  The main visitors center for this park is in Port Angeles so we stopped there, did the above, walked a nature trail and had a picnic. Then from there we took the 17 mile windy drive uphill to Hurricane Ridge which is a main site at this park and about 5200 feet elevation.   Right as we pulled up, there was snow everywhere, low and ominous fog and deers grazing in the meadow by the visitors center.

Leah was in deer heaven at Hurricane ridge visitors center

Deers grazing in a meadow with view of Mt olympus

We did a little walk along the meadow loop.  We then went in the visitors center there to find out conditions for our hike as there was a lot of snow!  It turns out the road to our hike was closed but we could walk that and then catch the trail.  So that is what we did.  It was a beautiful  hike along Hurricane ridge with views of Mt. Olympus on one side, and Canada on the other (when the clouds departed).

We hiked in the snow!

Mt Olympus behind us

View of Canada from Hurricane Hill trail

Leah saw tons of deer including a tiny baby fawn.

We had to hike over patches of snow as well.  It was just so beautiful!  I was sad to leave but we had a long drive back to camp.  We stopped by Crescent Lake for photos on the way.  We finally saw the true nature of this area as it poured rain on our drive home...the first rain we had really seen here. Rain is on the forecast for the rest of our stay but that is OK because we are visiting hot springs tomorrow and the rain forest the next which will be perfect in the rain. The rest of the evening was spent switching campsites...we got an even better site with a perfect ocean view.