This past weekend Catherine, Nancy, and the kids took a trip to Oregon for a quilt show. I made my way to the Olympic National Park (once again), this time to the beautiful northeast corner - Royal Basin.
Royal Basin requires a reservation that can only be made up to 30 days in advance. Sites go fast as this is a very popular part of the park. It is rugged, remote, drop dead gorgeous, and relatively easy to get to. Well, the trailhead anyways.
Its a seven mile hike almost entirely uphill the entire way with the steepest parts right at the end before you make the Royal Lake basin. I went with some friends from work, and it took us almost five hours to hike up. I had come down with a nasty cold on Friday which I'm sure held me back, but goodness that hike thoroughly beat me down (on the way out too)!
We got to our campsite ahead of the horde, so we had the pick for the second best spot around the lake. We set up camp and I took a nice little nap. We then hiked around a bit to explore the place, to include some meadows which were not yet a peak color, and a big waterfall. Then it was back to camp for some dinner. After that I wandered some more for some sunset photos, but due to the towering mountains all around us I didn't really get anything good.
So it was off to bed for an early sunrise (again, nothing great photographically). It was very peaceful up there, I was the only one really wandering about at that hour, but with the mist/fog rising off of the lake (second photo from the top) and the resident fearless deer wandering around with me, it was a nice time.
This weekend Christina comes in and we will all head to Sequim for the Lavender Festival. I'll be sure to swing by Hurricane Ridge and check out the wildflowers too, but I'm looking forward to this trip. Have a wonderful day everybody!
Marc
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