Day 14

Today, we started out by hiking in the Elwha Valley of Olympic National Park. We had to drive along a 5 mile, one lane gravel road to get to the trailheads. When we arrived, we did about a 4 and half mile hike, that took us along the Elwha River, though at a point along the mountainside well above the river itself.

This is an interesting area, in that there are (were) two dams that had been built many years ago, to provide hydroelectric power. The problem was, these dams were apparently built illegally, because they  did not provide a way for the fish (salmon) that had previously used this river as a spawning ground to continue to use it. In the early 1990's, the Federal government purchased the dams and has now begun tearing them down, in order to return the area to its original state. One of the dams is currently being dismantled, and it was pretty interesting to see the empty lake that had at one time existed due to the dam's presence. Unfortunately, this area of the park is closed to visitors and I wasn't able to get any pictures.

Anyway, the hike itself wasn't particularly spectacular, though it was certainly a nice walk in the woods. The whole time we were hiking, I couldn't help think about how awesome the trail we were walking would have been for a mountain bike! There were a couple of old cabins along the trail that had been built in the early 1900's, though they've been maintained and refurbished by the Parks Service, that had been used by early "pioneers" in this area.

After our hike, we planned to visit Hurricane Ridge, the Alpine part of Olympic National Park. As we were driving back down the gravel road, the gravel had other ideas for our plans, and I got to do something I haven't done in years ... change a flat tire!!! Yes ... we got a flat tire with about 1 mile to go before the end of the gravel road. Fortunately, we were able to make it the rest of the way down, and I changed the tire in the parking lot of a Ranger station.

After that, we headed back to town, and fortunately, Siri (Josh asked the iPad where we could find a tire repair center) was able to find a tire center for us in the town of Port Angeles, less than 1 mile from where we were at the time. Luckily, they were able to patch the tire, and after a very short interruption, we were back on our way.

We drove to the top of Hurricane Ridge, and the views were incredible.

Tomorrow, we head to Mount Rainier National Park. Once again, I think there's a really good possibility that we won't have any cellular service or internet access, but I guess you never know. Maybe the National Parks Service has recognized that having cellular service in the park campgrounds is a good safety measure.

So, if we have access, I'll be back tomorrow night with another blog post ... if not, it will have to wait a couple of days until we're on the road from Mount Rainier to Crater Lake, Oregon.