Magic Mountains

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The sun was setting and the chilly winds were quickly turning a warm afternoon into a cold alpine evening in the picnic area on Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park in Washington State. I pulled on a windbreaker and fleece hat and fired up my camp stove to cook a quick dinner, and watched as the fading light turned Mount Olympus gold and pink on the other side of Geyser Valley and the Bailey Range.


I had come to Olympic National Park to try to sample as many of the park’s different aspects as I could in a few days. The 920,000-acre park on the Olympic Peninsula has some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, all within a few hours’ drive – or even a few hours’ walk. There are rugged mountains topped with glacier-scraped bare rock where nothing more than lichen grows; lush rainforests along the coast and the river valleys; and miles and miles of rugged, wild Pacific coastline, with teeming tide pools and white beaches dotted with stark black sea stacks, the eroded black rocks that rise from the waves just offshore.


After spending a night at the musty, down-market Chinook Motel (1414 E. 1st St., Port Angeles, Wash., 360-452-2336; rooms about $80), I planned to spend two nights at backcountry campsites, with time for one last day hike on my third day in the park. (The Backcountry Permit Fee is $5 plus $2 a person for any overnight stay in the park backcountry. Car camping is also available at many sites throughout the park for between $8 and $16.)


Upon arriving I drove about 80 miles across the peninsula to the Ozette section of the park, on the west coast. The drive took me past lumber company clear-cuts filled with beautiful purple fireweed and volunteer foxgloves and through towns where ramshackle houses sat beside some of the most beautiful flower gardens I’ve seen anywhere.


The 6-mile hike to my campsite for the night started on a cedar boardwalk though the rainforest. In the under-story, tiny, marvelous winter wrens (which a ranger described as looking like mice with wings) whistled and chattered at me from the bushes. Then, suddenly, the light began to feel more open, I heard the sound of waves, and the path opened out onto the beach.


The term driftwood takes on a whole new meaning here, where hundreds of full-sized logs mark the high-tide line, washed up from all around the Pacific. Rangers occasionally find rare wood, like mahogany, and logs with lumber company brands from Asia and South America.


The last leg of the hike was a few miles down the beach from Cape Alva to Sandy Point. As I walked, the fog and the tide rolled in, covering the rocks and swirling around the sea stacks just offshore. There were already half a dozen tents set up on the beach at Sandy Point when I arrived, but with the fog and the roar of the waves, it was easy enough to believe I only had to share this place with the gulls and shore birds that patrolled the wet sand.


I hiked out early the next morning, following another path from the beach through the forest to complete a loop back to the trailhead. I wanted to give myself time to drive the 70 miles south to Beach 4 – a prosaic name for an existentially huge stretch of sand punctuated by rocky pools filled with purple and orange sea stars, green anemones, and crabs of many colors – by low tide. After an hour or so of tide-pooling I headed back north a few miles to the Hoh River section of the park and hiked into the woods again.


I followed a trail 5 miles up the Hoh River to my campsite, and pitched my tent on the edge of the river. A white crowned sparrow hawked insects out of the air while I sat quietly and gazed at Mount Tom, Hoh Peak, and the glacier on the flanks of Mount Olympus.


The next morning, my last day in the park, I hiked out down the Hoh River and drove the 90 miles back to Hurricane Ridge for one last hike. The trailhead was eight miles down a narrow, winding dirt road that veers off from the main visitor’s road near the top of the ridge. My last hike would take me from Obstruction Point down into Grand Valley to Grand Lake. Along the way I crossed fields of barren talus and beds of phlox, lupine, and lilies. From the dry, baking sun on top of Lillian Ridge, the trail fell away down switchbacks and stone steps. A Bewick’s wren gave its buzzing call from a stunted tree. As the trail descended out of the sun and into the shadow of the mountains, the air cooled. I passed a melting snow field, which fed an ice-cold brook, and the brook tumbled down the slope to the clear, blue waters of Grand Lake more than 1,000 feet below the ridge.


The hike out was even tougher than it would have been, knowing that there was no cool, clear lake waiting for me on the other side. I paused at the crest of the ridge again, and looked back into the mountains. I was sitting in the view that I’d seen from Hurricane Ridge the other night, and I wasn’t looking forward to a long, dusty drive on the dirt road, or the even longer drive and ferry ride back to Seattle.


Bumping along the dirt road half an hour later, Olympic National Park surprised me once again. I caught up to the car ahead of me, and rolled along enveloped in its dust. That’s not usually a great place to be, but as we rounded a corner into the sun, the haze swirled like sea fog and the light turned golden, and even that cloud of dust, for a moment, was gorgeous.


The New York Sun

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