Washington, The Evergreen State.

The Magical Pacific Northwest

Day 1: Our Washington trip started out in Seattle. We drove south towards Tacoma, took a wrong turn, and got lost somewhere in Elma on the way to the Vance Creek Bridge. An hour out of the way and different directions we found it, but I was to nervous to actually bring my camera, which I am currently regretting. After Vance Creek we drove up Highway 101 to the Murhut Falls Trailhead, we loaded up our bags for the 4 mile round trip to the falls.

After we hung out at the falls for a while, we headed back to the car and drove up to Port Angeles. I told Kristen that I wanted to drive up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park for sunset, but unfortunately the gas light came on three quarters of the way up the ridge, so we turned around and coasted back down to Port Angeles.

  

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Day 2: With a full tank of gas Kristen and I headed up the ridge road. We hiked part of Hurricane Hill trail and ate an early lunch while sitting in a cloud. After we left the ridge we drove out to Cape Flattery, the most northwest point of the U.S. I sat on the edge of the bluff for half an hour watching the waves crash into the coast.

When we left the cape we drove through Forks, which was definitely the biggest let down of the entire trip. It has been completely commercialized by Twilight, which was expected I guess, we just didn't expect it to be quite so lame. We had reservations to camp at Kalaloch Campground that night, but before we headed there we went to Ruby Beach. I have no words for how incredible it was, between the driftwood and tide pools I was left completely speechless.

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Day 3: After sleeping in the car on the beach, we woke up and made the 3.5 hour drive to Mount Rainier National Park. We met up with our friends Alyce and Jen, who now live in Portland. Mt. Rainier is a drive through national park, which means you can see the biggest highlights of the park from the car. We did the highlights, then decided we would hike to Comet Falls. I really underestimated that hike, and I can't lie it was tough but it was so worth it.

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Day 4: We woke up to an almost cloudless day. I was pretty annoyed at the clouds for hiding Mt. Rainier the entire time we were in the park the day before, but that's besides the point. Since we were at the park on a gorgeous weekend we knew there been a ton of people out. Kristen and I were still worn out from the day before and from me cramming a bunch of things into a couple of days, oops.

After we left the park we drove out to Franklin Falls trail and hiked down. When we reached the bottom we were pretty bummed with the amount of people there, but hey, at least people were outside doing stuff. Later that night I dropped Kristen off at the airport to catch her plane home.

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Day 5: I headed north of Seattle to North Cascades National Park. A lot of the trails I wanted to hike were still snow covered, which is surprising because the last two days of my trip were the hottest of all of them. I hiked 4 miles to Lake Ann which is off of the Heather Maple Pass Loop. I only did half of the loop because of snow and I didn't have trekking poles.

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Day 6: My last day was probably the most chill of the trip. I knew I would be flying home later than night and I wanted to take as much in as I could. I was physically exhausted by this point so I didn't take too many pictures. After I left the North Cascades I drove to Deception Pass and hung out for a while on the beach.

Washington, you are majestic as hell and I cannot wait to return.