THE QUEETS RAINFOREST.
Day 220 – This morning we got a phone call from the owner of the campground where we had the problem yesterday with the campsite being too muddy to camp there. He wanted to tell us that we could move to another site. We told him we’d been unable to reach him yesterday, so we’d just moved on to a different campground. He explained he’d been out on a fishing trip and no one could reach him, and he gave us a refund. He was very nice, so now we’re not giving him a bad review or ruling out camping there in the future.
The weather was good today and we spent the entire day sightseeing – visiting beaches, campgrounds, taking scenic drives & a couple of hikes, checking out huge trees, and enjoying the second of four Olympic National Park rainforests.
“The Queets Rainforest. With fewer visitors traveling more than 11 miles of curvy road to get to Upper Queets, you won’t find crowds on the trails here in the southwestern part of the park. A major landslide in 2005 severely damaged the Lower Queets Road, so you can only drive to Matheny Creek. Beyond there, it is closed. Park officials have closed the area to the public within 1/4 mile of the landslide due to unsafe conditions. To access the upper valley, you can take a network of forestry roads. Take road 21 off of Highway 101. This network of roads are also active logging routes.”
“For a shorter hike, take Sam’s River Loop, a flat 2.8-mile loop. For a more rigorous hike, go for as a long as you want on the 16.2-mile Queets River Trail. However, you do need to ford Sam’s River and then the Queet’s River to go up the trail. These crossings can be dangerous, so park officials advise hikers to wait until late summer or early fall and to avoid doing this hike if a storm is coming in. Storms can make the river swell and trap you on the wrong side of the river. They also advise using a sturdy pole and crossing in the morning when flows can be lower.” (Excerpts above from Olympic National Park Trips, Outside Magazine, by Tori Peglar, May 6, 2022.)
It did rain a little today which added to the misty dampness in the rainforest. The moss hanging from the trees was just dripping with moisture, occasionally the wind would blow and the drops would glisten in the sunlight. We also saw Bald Eagles and a group of baby Common Mergansers getting a ride on their mothers’ back. We met two very interesting ladies, both of them named Linda (easy for us to remember) who have spent the last several years traveling all over the world taking pictures. We talked with them for quite awhile, sharing stories about places we’d been. One Linda is 69 years old, the other is 73, and they take long, arduous hikes looking for adventures. Made me feel like I was 90, LOL. Turns out they will be on Vancouver Island in August when we are there, so we’re going to meet up with them then. Cool, huh?
We’re glad we went out and saw places today; it was already a little crowded, especially at the beaches. It will be a lot busier the next few days because of the weekend. It was a good day. After dinner at the RV, Rob went out to the beach here at the campground and got some more sunset pictures.
