Thank god for treehuggers

7/29/2017

Good morning! I was up with the dawn, packed and ready to tackle another day with my trusty steed! Jane and I hopped on the first ferry off the island and headed on over to the Olympic peninsula in good time.

Ha! Just kidding. I was up at 9 AM, and it didn’t occur to me to buy a ferry ticket until 10. Seems that since the ferry is really the best way to get to the Olympic peninsula without traipsing through the snarl of Seattle, quite a lot of people take it. By 10 AM, all of the morning ferry tickets were sold out. So I bought the first available one for the afternoon and then screwed around for a few hours at the grocery store and Starbucks.

At 2:30 PM, Jane and I finally got moving for the day. Well, whatever, I’m on my own vacation and I can be late to my own stuff if I want!

We boarded the ferry in Coupeville with little fuss, though the exhaust was quite loud in the little side tunnel the ferry guys stuffed us into. I set the brake and buttoned Jane down for the ride, then headed up onto the top deck to check out the views.

The GPS is very confused.

The Coupeville ferry isn’t a very long ride – only a half hour – but it shaves off a good three hours of drive time if you’re trying to head to Port Angeles from the northeastern side of the state. Even better, the ferry treats you to a view of Washington’s complex cliffy shoreline as it resists the hungry waves of the Pacific. Seabirds weave and whirl in clouds along the shore and above fleets of small fishing boats, keeping a sharp eye out for fish popping out of the water, fleeing unseen predators below. The boats appear as so much confetti scattered across the bay, each puttering about in its own little world of sea and sky.

As we got out into more open water, a stiff frigid wind strove to push me back indoors from my position on the top deck. I did eventually relent so that I could grab a hot dog – kind of odd that a half hour ferry ride would have a café, but I guess it helps make money since the ferry ride itself is inexpensive. I enjoyed my hot dog from the safety of the mezzanine where the breeze wasn’t quite so sharp, and before I knew it the ferry ride was over.

Jane and I disembarked and promptly headed to the visitor center at Olympic National Park, where I spent some time calling around campgrounds to find a good site. With that taken care of we headed up to Hurricane Ridge, a high spot in the park that is named for its frequent hurricane-force winds. Fortunately, we arrived on a good day with just regular-force breezes.

Before I go any further, I should give you a brief overview of Olympic National Park. This park is unique in that it showcases a variety of drastically different ecosystems. The northern end of the park contains the majority of the Olympic Mountains, a range of jagged, steep, snow-capped peaks that march dramatically across the landscape, their lines broken only by deep forested valleys. The western side of the park protects a portion of the Pacific coast with its classic seamounts and a myriad of tide pools teeming with life. And the southern part of the park features old growth temperate rainforests, mossy and ancient. It’s possible to travel between these three areas within the space of a few hours, which has a tendency of distorting your sense of time disconcertingly.

I elected to just check out Hurricane Ridge for the rest of the day, saving the coastline and the rainforests for tomorrow. The views from the top of the ridge were stunningly picturesque, vast and awe-inspiring. Competing for my attention were meadows of densely clustered wildflowers of every color and shape. I hiked around several of the trails, enjoying the alpine wilderness.

This tree has some awesome crazy hairy moss all over it

These trees have grown in a really peculiar way - I assume that at one point they looked normal, but a change in wind conditions caused them to abandon their top branches and instead spread out, bushlike, along the ground. 

I saw a lot of wildlife on those trails – I suppose they were also enjoying the nice day in the alpine wilderness – and it occurred to me that this is kind of a unique thing. In properly managed National Parks, wildlife coexists with humans in a really special way. I’m not talking about the squirrels that people feed all the time. I’m talking about the animals that see people and just go on with their day, knowing that they’re not a threat. They don’t care if you’re pointing at them, or taking pictures of them, or yelling near them. They’re just hanging out doing their own thing.

This phenomenon fascinates people, and that’s why you always see tourists getting unnecessarily close to animals to photograph them. But I think that to some degree that’s a reflection of who we would like to be. The seamless integration of people into the natural world is something that a lot of us have lost – knowing or unknowingly – and we don’t realize that we’re missing it until we have interactions like these. Now, I’m not saying that all animals should be protected and that we shouldn’t eat or kill any animals or anything like that, and that’s not at all the point. The point is that a lot of us are missing the link to the rest of the world, to the parts that aren’t dominated by humans. So when we see animals that view us as just another part of their day, giving no second thoughts to our presence, we are abruptly pulled into an alternative world of previously unrecognized beauty where coexistence is not just a possibility, but reality. And that is fascinating.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is: thank god for treehuggers. Thanks to the people who recognized that these lands were worth protecting in their wild state. Thanks to the people who fought to protect and preserve them. Thanks to the people who saw what we were missing, and held onto it for us to rediscover. Thanks to everyone who made it possible for me to take this photo of this super cute young buck hanging out under a tree.

Silliness aside, I really am thankful for the privilege of getting to experience this part of the world. I can’t wait to get to explore the rest of Olympic tomorrow! Writing from a campsite in Port Angeles in perfect weather with some hamburgers on the grill… Kelly signing out.