After leaving Seattle i boarded yet another ferry headed across the Puget Sound with Bainbridge Island as the destination. My next trek would to be Olympic national park which lies on the conveniently named Olympic peninsula which lies just west of Seattle. The ride took a few hours and was uneventful but pleasant. I stopped in Port Angeles which sits on the coast and rode from there inland to the shining star on my google map which marked where an Olympic park entrance was. I walked inside the visitors center to talk with a ranger if i could, as these big parks seem to have a lot of really knowledgeable staff. I found one and talked to her for a bit, she explained to me that on this particular day the views of the mountains would not be so good as the cloud cover was very low. She gestured over to some live camera feeds they have of the especially scenic spots, and she was right. We also looked over a map and which showed me that there were no direct routes through this park. There is one perimeter road that runs around the entirety and as you ride along that maybe every 30 miles there is a road that juts into the park for 20 to 30 miles depending on the feature it leads you towards. This is yet another massive park, but earlier i had decided there was really just one thing i would be seeing no matter what, and that was the Hoh Rainforest. From the visitors center i headed west and almost immediately ran into rain. Luckily i quickly ran across a gas station which i pulled into and slapped my rain gear on, and then got back on the road. The rain came down hard but the road was all relatively straight lines, easy stuff. The road began to snake and descend in altitude until it ran across a smokey lake with clouds that hovered a few hundred feet above the surface. This was Lake Crescent and it looked spooky as hell with the shapes of mountains all around it, but nothing being clear. It was like playing an old Silent Hill game or any game at all on the N64, except it actually looked awesome. Riding along the lake i came around a corner to see a semi pulled over that had spilled its entire trailer contents of GIANT LOGS out across the road. This was like realizing your nightmare could come true. All over this area logging trucks would pass me going the opposite direction and the thought did occur to me If the supports on any of these log trailers let go mid corner it would spill a few tons of unflinching log death right into my face. And here it was right before me, yuck. The road ascended again and the clouds gave way to light and warmth. I ended up in a kitschy little town that had the word TWILIGHT before everything. I saw one of those movies (by force, and it was terrible) but apparently it takes place around the area i was in. I say bring it on sparkle vampires! As the road into the Hoh rainforest descends the moss gets fluffier and move vividly green. Foliage takes on a primordial look fairly quickly and there is no other way to describe it other than magic. It is damp but pleasant, and if the sun is just right you can see millions of tiny water droplets drifting sideways through the trees. Just breathing the air feels great. I set up camp near a small river that produced a nice burbling sound. The water was gray, which bewildered me. I learned later that this was because that river was rich in glacial flour, which is a very fine rock particulate generated by glaciers grinding their way down a mountain. In this case that mountain was Mt Olympus. By standing on the banks of the river you could see the mountains all around. It looked like parts of the forest was on fire, the way clouds just seem to emerge from the forests high on the mountains. Once again, absolutely beautiful. Also worth noting is within an hour of me setting up my tent i had a giant green slug climbing one of the tent walls trying to hang out with me. Id never seen slugs this huge before, and they are pretty cool to watch and mess with. The next day i packed up and headed for Portland. This is taking too long to write so ill hit the highlights. I zipped down the coast and ended up crossing a massive bridge into the town of Astoria, home of the goonies house. It is very....houselike. The house is up on a hill and while i was up there i could hear a sound from the docks about a half mile away and it sounded like bork bork bork! I went to the shore and found HUNDREDS of huge sea lions that had just taken over a bunch of docks. They are beyond noisey and are pretty much always borking or sneezing, its all pretty hilarious. I dont think they left a square inch of dock open as they were all competing for the best spots to bask in the decreasing sunlight. After laughing at them for awhile the sun was setting and i wanted to get closer to Portland before i went to sleep. About 30 miles outside of port land i felt a strange disturbance on the back of the bike. I looked back and there was 1 bag left, and my towel. THERE SHOULD BE 3 BAGS, SHITTTTTT. I pulled over immediately and got as far over as i could because this was a fast interstate with tons of big rigs and Im in no rush to die. I popped my helmet off and thought about what i had left, and what i had lost. One of the bags that fell had ALL of my clothes, and the other bag had my tent. Just as i was thinking about this a truck roared by with a curtain or something large flapping underneath it. Was that my......? Probably. It was absolutely dark out. I grabbed a flashlight and started walking backwards along the side of the freeway looking for a shred of evidence. I told myself i would walk a mile and if i found nothing i would turn back. At just about the 1 mile point i found a square foot of bright green fabric, fabric that looked exactly like what my tent was made of. Godspeed tent, we had a good run. Okay! No shelter and no clothes besides what Im wearing. Now its a real adventure.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 16:56:46 +0000
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