Olympic NP Vacation Day 5: Deterred by Mud

Today we slept in till 6:30 AM, I know we really slept in a lot, but still made it to breakfast. Today we tried the pancakes. The pancakes were not anything special, just normal pancakes; however, Jim noted we are very close to Canada but can’t be supplied with real maple syrup. After breakfast we headed up the South Shore Road to a couple of waterfalls, so I could take some pictures of the them using my tripod so I could get that nice fluffy water. The first one was a short .3-mile hike to a bridge overlooking the falls. Sadly, this bridge was in the wrong spot, because the larger falls was further down the stream and you could not get a good view of it. So, I had to settle for the smaller falls. I took a couple of pictures of it from the bridge, then climbed down to the water level to get a better picture of it. After taking some pictures at streambed level we climbed back up to the trail and headed back to the car to move onto the next waterfall. The next waterfall was easy to access since it is on the side of the road. We parked in a pull off and then went down to the stream bed. While I took some pictures of the falls, Jim climbed some the rocks nearby. After I was done taking pictures we got in the car and drove over to North Shore Road to take a hike up to a lake.

The hike to the lake was supposed to be a moderate 1-mile hike out and 1-mile back, but we only made it about halfway to the lake. The middle of the trail was engulfed by mud and then a large stream which made it very difficult to travers and determine exactly were the trail was. We determined it was safer to turn back, so we didn’t make it to the lake. Since our hike ended early, we decided to drive down to Hoquiam for lunch.

There is virtually no place to eat near the lodge, our only choices are eating at the lodge with a limited menu or go over to Dino’s to eat. We are getting tired of the lodge and the prices and Dino’s barely rates one star in our opinion. So, we made the 45-minute drive down 101 to Hoquiam to eat at a small diner. For being a simple window serve diner it was decent. Jim had a burger and I had a BLT, we opted not to get the fried gizzards that were on the menu. After lunch we drove back to the lodge, where we played some lawn games. I am horrible at horseshoes but ok at Ladder Ball. Overall, we did not do too much today. I’m still not good at sitting still and relaxing, I like going out and doing things. I’m not sure what we will do tomorrow.

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