Hiking in the Olympics

Yesterday, we set out early, at 6:30am to catch the 7am ferry boat to Bainbridge Island. Taking the ferry, particularly when it’s cloudy and cool and you can smell the Puget Sound always feels like such a Seattle experience to me. Seagulls flying around, everything muted by the cloudy grey and the air is so fresh and crisp and sea-like. I think I’m turning into a real Northwesterner because I’m starting to revel in these cloudy cool days and look a little forward to the chilly and rainy fall and winter. Of course, the clouds didn’t last for long. They burned off to reveal a gorgeous sunny day for hiking. Upon reaching Bainbridge, we drove south and west into the Olympic Mountains. The total trip took about two hours and we ended up on a dirt road off a dirt road off a small paved road. I heard about this hike from a friend and the description of it in the hiking book says, “If for some terrible reason you are only allowed one hike in the Olympics in your lifetime, this should be it.” We figured this would be the perfect hike to take my mom on, who is visiting from Pittsburgh. The hike itself was difficult to say the least-10.6 miles (5.3 up, 5.3 back). The description didn’t say this, but the hike is pretty much 5.3 miles straight up hill, with only small reprieves to rest and have a look around. I’ve been working out a lot at the gym, doing cardio and weights, but this hike was hard. That being said, it was totally worth it and completely spectacular.

Starting out, the hike meanders (less steeply) through old growth forests with lots of moss and everything is green, green, green. It all just feels so alive, and the air is so good to breathe.

 The trail follows a river for a long while, which gave off a nice cool wind.

After several miles, and very steep going, the trail starts to open into clearings where you can look out over the valley, and to the neighboring peaks. We were walking along with low-hanging clouds at the same level.

Finally, just as we thought we might not make it, the forest gave way to open meadows of wildflowers, where we took a nice break and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. By the way, I’m not sure we would have made it up the trail without the Raw Fruit/Nut Trail Snacks I made the day before. Maizy had some lunch also, and was quite a trooper through the whole trip–sniffing everything, playing in the streams, eating peanuts that other hikers seemed to have dropped.

Continuing up the trail, we came to dry, open meadows and could finally see the top!

When we made it to the top, we could look back down over where we had hiked and we were well above the clouds.

And in the other direction, the panorama we’d been hiking all the way up to see:

It was a gorgeous hike, and it felt great to get out into the mountains and away from the city. We certainly don’t do it often enough.

When we got back to Seattle, we went to Maneki for dinner, a wonderful Japanese restaurant in the International District. I ordered an avocado ponzu salad:

And a durkee roll (avocado, pickled daikon, and cucumber), which is unpictured because I was so hungry I forgot to photograph it. And shared an order of vegetable tempura with the table.

Sushi was one of my favorite foods before going vegan, and it’s great to still be able to go out for Japanese food, and indulge in those delicious flavors in a plant-based way. Some delicious food at the end of a delicious day.

Enjoy the long weekend, everyone!