North Cascades and Olympic

North Cascades National Park, in the northern area of Washington state, is a back country camper's dream, with endless miles of wilderness trails strewn across endless acres of mountains, fields, and forests. It's also bear country, and I didn't feel like hiking the back country alone. I did get some hiking advice from a very nice park ranger (who, after seeing my hat, said (admitted?) she went to UConn for a semester) and did a few trails before heading back to the Mayor's place for beer, Fatburgers, and a Seattle tour.

The next day I drove to Olympic National Park, in western Washington. Olympic is about the size of Rhode Island, and it's a little slow getting around; where most national parks have either a road cutting through or a loop road system in the middle, Olympic has a loop around the perimeter, from which you drive 10-20 mile spurs into and out of. The resulting drive to activity ratio is rather low.

I spent the night in the Hoh Rain Forest. Yup, Washington has a rain forest, which receives over 12 feet of rain per year. Did it rain while I was there? Nope.

The last part of the park is the west coast beach. I have now officially traveled coast to coast, having set foot in the Atlantic over two weeks ago in Acadia, and now having sloshed through tidal pools in the Pacific at Olympic!