Planned Itinerary: 6 Nights and 7 Days in Olympic National Park (1 night at Heart O’ the Hills campground, 1 night at Mora campground, 1 night backcountry on Chilean Beach, 3 nights backcountry on Seven Lakes Basin Loop – Canyon Creek #3, Lunch Lakes, Heart Lake)
Actual Itinerary: 5 Nights and 6 Days in Olympic National Park (1 night at Heart O’ the Hills campground, 1 night at Mora campground, 1 night backcountry on Chilean Beach, 1 night backcountry on Seven Lakes Basin Loop – Canyon Creek #3, 1 night at Kalaloch campground)
There are a few ways to get from Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands to Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula. We had not done our research ahead of time, but when we arrived at Anacortes and plugged in Olympic, we saw that the quickest routes involved taking an additional ferry. This route also proved to be the cheaper option, considering the mileage to drive around the south side of Seattle and up to the Olympic peninsula would have cost more in gas than the ferry. Since we didn’t have a ferry reservation, we had to ride standby from Coupeville (an hour drive from Anacortes) to Port Townsend. Fortunately, we only had to wait about 1.5 hours, and it was only $18 for the car and us! From Port Townsend, it was another 1.25-hour drive to the Heart O’ the Hills campground at the northeast side of Olympic near Port Angeles, WA. There were plenty of available campsites since we were now in the off-season. We arrived late, so we cooked tacos in the dark and headed to bed.
Our first full day in Olympic was a planning day. It started with a drive up to Hurricane Ridge for a beautiful panorama view of the parks and its many peaks. We could see the fire burning on Mt. Dana (at the moment it posed no danger to visitors or structures in the park and would be difficult to fight at its location, so the park/firefighters were just watching the fire’s progress). The view is well worth the drive and we were lucky to have a clear day. Afterwards we went to the visitor’s center in Port Angeles to plan the rest of our stay. The ranger was extremely helpful in planning our itinerary. We had wanted to do the Enchanted Valley backcountry hike, but unfortunately the road to the trailhead was closed so accessing it would have required additional days backpacking. The alternatives, however, were great options! We landed on the Seven Lake Basin loop based on length and rave reviews. We also wanted to squeeze in a night or two on the beach. As a walk-in at Olympic, you can book backcountry for that same night or the following night. In order to avoid coming back to the office, we booked a consecutive trip to take advantage of the available sites in the next few days. We started with a night at Chilean Beach on Saturday (which has not permit number limitations, so unlimited number of people can go). In order to access Chilean Beach, you must plan according to low tide since part of the access route traverses areas that are covered during high tide. The ranger reviewed the tide charts with us, and it appeared that we could hike out on Sunday between 1 pm and 4 pm. We had planned to start the Seven Lake Basin loop right after, so we picked a campsite about 2.5 miles into the loop for the first night to make sure we could get there before sunset. The next two sites on the loop would be at Lunch Lakes and Heart Lake, both considered two of the premier sites on the route. We were very excited as we left the visitor’s center with our permit! We also rented an extra bear box from the visitor’s center for free to accommodate the 3 nights of food (ours can only fit 2 nights worth for both of us).
Since we couldn’t hike into Chilean Beach that night (missed the low tide for the day), we stayed at Mora Campground, about 5 minutes up the road from the Chilean Beach trailhead (at Rialto Beach). Once we secured a campsite for the night, we drove back to the town of Forks to do some laundry at Laundry 101 (we hadn’t done laundry since Missoula a few weeks ago!). The experience was surprisingly pleasant and cost $7.25 for two loads of wash and one dryer. We also filled up on gas and ice in town. Dinner that night was pasta with sausage, peppers, and onions. We moved slowly the next morning, cooking a nice breakfast with egg/bacon tacos and coffee because we couldn’t hike into Chilean Beach until the early afternoon (based on the timing of low tide). When the time came, we had a 4-mile hike along the beach. The first mile or two of the hike to “Hole in the Wall” (which you can walk through during low tide) was along sand, which proved challenging with 30-35 lb. packs on. The hike thereafter was mostly on larger rocks, which was also challenging especially when wet. While challenging, it was also very enjoyable, and we had great weather! Along the way, we saw a sea otter. When we got to Chilean Beach after about 2 hours of hiking, there were only three other groups (two couples and one solo camper). It felt very private and remote. I took a quick dip in the freezing Pacific Ocean and then we relaxed the rest of the afternoon. We had a campfire with driftwood and kept it going all evening until we went to bed. We both slept well as the sand acted as an extra sleeping pad. We did hear racoons in the middle of the night, but they didn’t bother our bags or our tent thankfully! There was no rush to get up the next morning since we again had to wait for low tide. We made some mashed potatoes for breakfast with granola bars and hot tea, then read on the beach/in our hammock until it was time to pack up. We were very sad to leave our secluded beach, but excited for the next backcountry trip as well! On the hike out, we saw seals just off the coast. And plenty of seagulls and pelicans. We would highly recommend Chilean Beach!
From Rialto Beach (the Chilean Beach trail head), we had to drive 1.5 hours to the Sol Duc Falls trailhead, where we began our Seven Lakes Basin loop. We had a little under 3 miles to hike with a 1,200 ft elevation gain to reach our first campsite, Canyon Creek, site #3. The hike felt long because we were already a bit tired from our hike out of Chilean Beach and it was raining. We had our rain gear on, and rain covers on our bags, so we stayed relatively dry. As we passed Canyon Creek campsites #1 and #2, both were vacant (but had been booked when we were planning our trip) and I was wishing we could stop at one of those. Nevertheless, we finally made it to site #3 after about 2 hours of hiking (slower than our typical pace). As I had mentioned in other posts, we had made a poor purchase of Alpine Aire backpacking food. In order to avoid eating them three nights in a row, we thought it would be a good idea to bring hot dogs in for the first night, since we could have a fire at this campsite (no fires allowed at higher elevations). Patrick set to work getting the fire to start in the rain; we had thought that we had brought plenty of fire starters and matches with us, but we ended up going through everything. Thankfully, with the help of the jetboil to supplement the matches (difficulty lighting in the rain), Patrick was able to get a flame long enough for me to roast the hot dogs to get them warm. I can’t say they were that great, but they were still better than the Alpine Aire. While Patrick was busy getting the fire going, I attempted to set up the tent in the rain and get our stuff into it while keeping everything as dry as possible. By laying the tarp over the tent before putting the poles up, and quickly transferring items from our bags into the tent, I generally succeeded. As soon as we stuffed ourselves with hot dogs, the fire died (we left it unattended for about 30 seconds), and we got into the tent to get out of the rain. Since it was still relatively early, we listened to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (our current audible book) before calling it a night.
It rained all night and all morning. We got everything packed back up, but at this point, all our items were a little damp. Hopeful that the rain would let up or slow down as we hiked to our next campsite, we pushed forward. Today we had about 4 miles with 1,500 ft elevation gain to reach the Lunch Lakes campsite. For the first mile or so, it was just a steady mist, which was tolerable. We reached Deer Lake, which was nice, but at this point there was a lot of fog, which made it hard to see the complete beauty. As we started to climb, the rain became steadier and heavier, and the fog/clouds became thicker. We passed a few smaller lakes; it was very peaceful and quiet, but again, everything was dampened by the rain (pun intended). We finally reached the top of the hike where we would start the short climb down into the basin where the Lunch Lakes campsite was located. This portion of the hike is supposed to have beautiful views into the basin below – we could barely see 10 feet in front of us. Two solo hikers were near us at this time and we all looked miserable. One hiker that we ran into was coming from the other direction at Heart Lake campsite, where we had booked our third night. She warned us that there were a lot of bears hanging around the campsite in the berry patches. She didn’t have any issues, but was nervous, especially being by herself. After hearing this, and seeing, or rather not seeing, our beautiful promised views, Patrick and I conferred and looked at our options. We knew that the weather was likely not going to turn around until our fourth day when we were hiking out, we knew there were bears at the next campsite, we were absolutely soaked to the bone (clearly our rain gear was not built for this), and we couldn’t see anything. Our options appeared to be as follows: option 1, continue with the remaining 2 nights, with wet clothes and gear; option 2, continue to Lunch Lakes campsite and hike out the following morning; option 3, hike out at that moment and not complete the loop. Neither of us were keen on quitting, so we selected option 2 and proceeded. However, after another 5 minutes of hiking, we changed to option 3. At the end of the day, we were miserable, and it just wasn’t worth it. I was extremely conflicted and will probably never be fully satisfied with the decision unless I can come back and complete the hike in the future. Regardless, we now had 7 miles to hike out the way we had come in (skipping the rest of the loop because it would have been too long the other way to make it out by nightfall). The rain was constant the entire way down. This was probably the worst 7 miles of hiking in our lives, but we obviously made it. It was about 4:30 pm when we made it back to the car (total of about 6.25 hours for the 9.5 miles we hiked), and all we wanted to do was get far away from the rain. So that’s what we did – we drove to Kalaloch campground along the coast.
The Kalaloch campground is big. There are several sites that face the beach/Pacific Ocean which would be amazing if you’re lucky enough to grab one. The D through F loops have fewer sites, so would probably be quieter. We arrived late that evening (around 6 pm), so choices were limited, and we took one of the interior sites near the bathroom (#A38) – nothing special. We were so happy to be out of the rain. We also got lucky because the campground had just turned over into the off-season (September 8th) and had become first come first serve (during the busier summer months, the campsites are reserved in advance).
The best part of the day was when we reached the car after our hike, and not just because that meant the hike was finally finished. Over the last week or so, we had noticed that we had a visitor in the car based on some chewed through bags of almonds and raisins (my go to hiking snack). Before getting to Olympic, we had purchased some mouse traps to set around the front seats of the car (where the mouse, whom we named Timmy, appeared to be most active). Over the last couple of nights, he had somehow managed to enjoy the peanut butter offering without getting caught. However, when we came down from Lunch Lakes, we were finally successful in ridding ourselves of our Timmy problem (hopeful that it was only one mouse)!
Since our backcountry trip had been cut short, and we had seen a lot of the spots in Olympic, we decided to spend the extra time along the Oregon coast. On the way out of Olympic, we stopped at Quinault in the park to drop off the borrowed bear vault. While we were there, we checked out one of the world’s largest sitka-spruce trees just up the road from the ranger station. The 1,000-year-old tree has an 18-foot diameter and is approximately 190 feet tall. After that we also checked out the Merriman Falls, which was a little further up the road. These brief stops concluded our trip to Olympic National Park, and we headed south to explore the Oregon coast.
