"Many people just sit behind their steering wheel, scared to venture into the wilderness." - Keith Foskett
There is something to be said on trips like these when you get to head to bed one night knowing that you don't have to rush off to some other place. Getting into the Sol Duc Campground Wednesday evening, setting up camp, and going to bed with that feeling made for something magical.
Getting an opportunity to sleep in a dense forest with all of the sights and sounds that come along with it is something that I wish more people would seek.
That Wednesday night was one of the coolest nights we'd had in quite a few days. And considering the intense heat we'd been experiencing as hikers, it was a welcome relief. A sleeping pad and sleeping bag paired well with the owl hoots that seemed to dart from one area of the forest to the other in a moment's notice. With extreme exhaustion levels, listening to the silent wildlife provided the perfect white noise for a solid night's rest.
Sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m., we stirred, ate breakfast, and began thinking about the day ahead. We needed some ice for the cooler, so we got in the car and drove half of a mile to the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort. Ice was necessary, but there were ulterior motives as we wanted to see what the springs were all about. It might be a place we'd find ourselves near later that day. The overpowering stench of eggs told us we were there.
We inspected the resort and checked out prices before deciding to head back to camp to change for the day. Soon, we made lunches and choose to take things easy by hiking only five miles roundtrip to the Sol Duc Falls from our campground.
In this section of Olympic National Park, you encounter an incredibly dense forest with the Sol Duc River in your ears but not your eyes. It's a serene feeling winding your way through humongous trees.
Along the way, we encountered large trees - some fallen over - surrounded by an intense ground cover of lilies, ferns, and moss that seemed to take over anything they could.
Eventually, we made our way to a fork that connected our campground trail with the main trail that starts at a parking lot less than a tenth of a mile from the intersection.
We didn't run into anybody on our nearly two-mile hike to that intersection. But the second we turned the corner onto the main trail, we quickly understood that most people who venture to the Sol Duc Falls do not take the road less traveled.
That's not a knock on those people by any means. Heck, Cara and I have done that before, especially when you try to hit an entire national park in one day. That said, there is something rewarding about getting to a destination all by foot, no gasoline needed.
The trail to the falls was pretty populated the entire mile or so.
At one point, we crossed a bridge that gave us a profile view of the Sol Duc Falls.
Once we made our way across the bridge, we turned a bit upstream and got a different look of the falls with a rainbow doing its best to becoming something in the mist of these falls.
Prior to hiking, we packed up lunches, snacks, hammocks, and chairs. We didn't have an exact plan, but we thought it'd be a good idea to just hang out and chill along the Sol Duc River. There were a few families hovering around the falls, so we took a trail - Lover's Lane Trail, possibly - even more upstream.
We found a rocky beach with some great hammock trees along the river. That was good enough for the four of us, and we set up camp.
Once there, we ate and hung out. I took my boots off and waded around the extremely cold water looking for the perfect hammock spot. Maybe it was where I hiked or maybe it was the frigid water, but I decided to make my way back to our minicamp and set the hammock up near there.
After an hour or so of relaxing along the Sol Duc River, we decided that it was time pack up and head back to the campground.
Once back at camp, we didn't need to talk long about what to do next. All four of us hadn't showered properly since Monday evening and having hiked almost 30 miles over the last five days, we thought it best to relax and regroup at the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort.
We spent a little bit of time taking it easy in the natural hot springs as well as the swimming pool. By 6:00 or 7:00 p.m., however, we knew it was time to get back to our campground.
We made dinner before 9:00 p.m. for the first time all trip, got a solid fire going, just hung out either in the hammocks or by the fire until bedtime.
There was certainly some driving to be had on Friday. That plus knowing we'd want to spend some time in Seattle before our early morning flights on Saturday, meant we were hoping to have camp broken down and on our way back east by 8:00 a.m.
That was something we got very close to doing, but our day in Seattle is for another post.
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