Backpacking Ozette Triangle to Yellow Banks

Ryan somehow got a 3 day weekend the weekend before 4th of July, so we had to take advantage of the time off and plan a trip. I have wanted to backpack on the coast for a long time now. We faxed in our permit application for Ozette Triangle (old school) and within a day we got an email confirmation that we got the permits we wanted! Permits are $8/ person/ day. We would camp one night on the Ozette Triangle (Cape Alava) and then one night at Yellow Banks to extend it a bit and add in some more miles. Friday we left very early to make a 8:30 or so ferry. I will never drive around the peninsula and not take the ferry now. Even though it is a little price, it's so worth it and an experience in itself. We got to Port Angeles by 11:00 and stopped at the ranger station. For all permits you have to stop here to pick up your physical permit. I was annoyed we had to do this at first, but the ranger was super helpful in giving us all the information we would need to know about this trip like best campsites, water sources, toilets, ect. He gave us a tide chart as well and explained when it would be safe to head out. We recently bought a bear canister, so this was full of our food, but we picked up wine and more food so borrowed another one for free from the ranger station. A little excessive, but needed for all our food, wine and toiletries. They are big and annoying but also nice to not deal with hanging food. They also double as a chair as well. Score.

It was beautiful out so we took a pitstop to Hurricane Ridge that is right by the ranger station. It's about a 20-25 min drive up with expansive views of the Olympic Mountains. We did Hurricane Hill hike that was 3 miles/ 1000 EG. Such a beautiful hike.

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After this it was a 2 hour drive still to the coast. 4.5 total from Seattle. This road is long and takes forever as you can't go very fast, but we finally pulled into the parking lot. There is a camp ground here if you need to plan to pull in late and sleep there the night before. It was now 6:00 or so and with packs loaded we hit the trail. The 3 miles to the coast is mostly boardwalk, flat and old growth forest.

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We made it to the coast and ran into a ranger right away that checked our permits. A first in the backcountry for me. She said most of the spots up ahead were taken, so to take one that was pretty much by the entrance. It was right on the trail but also 7:30 at this point so we didn't feel like looking and set up camp there. It wasn't the worst spot, but annoying being on trail with no privacy.

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Once camp was set up, we strolled the beach to take in the little sunset there was. There were plenty of taken, better spots further down. Some right on the beach. You are allowed to camp anywhere on the beach as long as you aren't camping where high tide comes in.

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We woke up the next morning and had our nutritious breakfast of poptarts and coffee. Backcountry dining at it's finest.  We hit the trail by 9:00 something for the 5.5 mile trek to yellow banks. The tide would be low 10-6, so no rush to get over there. The first part to wedding rocks was very rocky and slow going. Walking on low tide pools mostly and not beach as we had to navigate around many large down trees. If you were to cross some of these sections during high tide there are overland passes, but not everywhere.

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We stopped for lunch at Sand point. This is where the triangle meets on the other side. The campsites here are in the woods. As we hiked on we hiked past South Sand point campsites and these were much nicer on the beach. If someone where to camp on the triangle I would recommend camping here. Huge beautiful beaches that stretched forever. We didn't get much sun this day, mostly overcast which I'm ok with as the usual prediction for the coast it lots of rain. We got no rain on this trip!

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The nice easy beach walking ended as we approached yellow banks. Had to climb some big/ slippery rocks here. Very important to do this at low tide. We also relied on our app on our phone for GPS as to where we were and what bank was yellow banks.

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The ranger in Port Angeles had told us of a campground at yellow banks that was amazing. He said it would be the first one when you come in. When we got there all we saw was beach and bluffs. We were very confused on where this site was. We hiked a little further and I saw a faint trail go up a bluff with a rope to get up it (was very steep). We went up there and found our own little oasis. There were 2 large plank platforms, one more sturdy than the other to set up a tent on. A perfect spot for a hammock as well. We couldn't believe no one else had claimed this by 1:00, but it was also really hard to find.

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We set up camp, had ramen, a 1.5 hour nap in the hammock, then set out to filter some water. We carried in 3 liters each and were just now running out. There is a water source at Cape Alava, but the water there was brown and murky. We hiked half way down the beach and found a good stream coming in and filtered 4 liters of water. This lasted us the rest of the trip. We could not see any more campsites even walking down the beach that far. The rest are at the other end of the beach in the woods or on the sand I assume. We saw a group of 7 stroll in at 6 or so and make their way down there to the other end. It basically felt like we had the beach to ourselves. The ranger said there are permits for 12 on this beach. We made another mountain house meal then gathered drift wood for a fire. Fires are allowed at Cape Alava and Yellow Banks, but no where between. There was so much drift wood at yellow banks. This was our first beach fire and it was amazing!

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Wine, fire and the ocean. What's better?!

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The ranger said the next morning we wouldn't be able to leave between 7-9 because of high tide. So we slept in and were out of there by 9:40. Yellow banks also has no toilets, so be aware of this. It was rough getting over the tough rocks getting out of Yellow Banks, but the rest of the 5.5 miles back to the car were smooth going. On this trip we heard a seal barking Friday night, but never saw it. We saw lots of crabs, eagles, hawks and deer. We saw seals just before leaving as someone pointed them out laying on rocks. We brought binoculars with that were perfect to watch them. We also saw a fox on the beach just before exiting to the woods as well.

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Overall about 15 miles of easy/ moderate hiking. The tough part was our heavy packs. Need to work on that before the wonderland. I would love to come back to the coast to explore other parts of it as well. Washington is so magical and never disappoints no matter what adventure you choose.

Summiting Mt. St. Helens

Since I got into hiking I have had Mt. St. Helen's on my radar. The permits open up for it every year in February. You have to get online right away to claim yours as within the first couple of hours all the weekends of the season get taken. I had originally gotten permits for a May date, but with 20+ inches of fresh snow that week and day, there was no chance of us going. Still determined to hike this mountain this year, I got in with another group as a permit opened up for me. They are $22/ piece. You can buy/sell them on purmit.com as well, so not all hope is lost if you get bad weather. The training:

I was recently asked can anyone hike this and how do you do it?! It can be an overwhelming goal if you are starting from scratch, so that's why I put a lot of work into training and conditioning to make this a reality. I consistently try to hike every weekend and try to increase my mileage/ elevation gain as well if I am training for something. A couple weeks before I did Camp Muir, which is a great training hike for this. During the week I tried to lift 2X a week and do cardio 2-3 extra times running, stairs or elliptical.

The weekend: 

A group of 8 of us headed down to Mt. St. Helen's on 6/23/17. I drove from Seattle and it took 4.5 hours with lots of traffic. The summer route was still not open yet, so we had to take the winter route and go to the sno-park. Catherine and I decided to sleep in the back of my outback, which proved to be rather comfortable. 2 more rolled in and we tried to wait for the rest of the group, but we hit the hay by 11:00. Wake up time was 3:15 and we were all fed and caffeinated and ready to go by 4:30. It was already getting light and and we barely had to hike with our headlamps on. My pack was super heavy with 5 liters of water, lots of food, glissading/snow gear, an ice axe and more. I weighed it before leaving and it was 23 pounds. My actual gear list for Helen's is as follows:

• buff
• gloves
• rain jacket
• rain pants
• gaiters
• ice axe
• spikes
• poles + snow baskets
• pack cover
• head lamp + batteries
• sit pad
• glacier sunglasses
• base ball cap
• external battery charger for phone
• camera
• sunscreen/ chap stick with SPF
• enough food for 10-11 hours of hiking
• 5 liters of water
• Extra pair os socks

The first 3 miles went quickly all on dirt. We enjoyed the sunrise over Mt. Hood and the valley surrounding us.

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We continued to hike up a ridge line and it got to be more rocky/ scree like. This stuff was very annoying to hike on as it just took forever and slid around a lot.

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Another big marker is hitting the weather station. After this it was mostly snowfields all the way up. Two in our group turned around shortly after this as one wasn't feeling well. The 6 of us continued on our way up the mountain.

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There was only one very steep section and it was on the way up to the false summit. There was good kick steps made on the way up until a snowshoer went ahead of me and ruined them making it dangerous for me to get footing.

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One last push to the real summit!

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Views from the summit with 6 other volcanoes in sight. Amazing!

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This was the longest day hike I have ever done at 12 miles/ 5,700 elevation gain. It took me almost 4 hours 30 min to get up, hung out at the top for almost 2 hours, and then we started our way down. The safest and fasted way down is to glissade. To do this you need an ice axe and waterproof protection over your pants. I am still getting the hang of glissading and find it rather terrifying most of the time. We went down one super steep section that was hard to control speed on that was very scary. It is important to know how to self arrest in these situations if need be. Thousands of glissading down and we got the the rock sections again, which were even slower going on the way down with trying not to slip and fall. By this time it was 90 degrees and we were ready to be off the mountain! Doris and I were off the mountain by 4:30, so 12 hours on the mountain total. I drank 3.5/5 liters of water. This day is what we call type 2 fun. So many moments were grueling/ mental game/ struggle fest, but looking back at it, it was so awesome to see what we accomplished together and what our bodies are possible of. I would do this hike again, but would want more snow to not deal with the rock/scree fields.

One volcano down, more to come? We shall see.

Ancient Lakes Round 2

So it has now become a tradition to backpack Ancient Lakes when the weather is finally warm enough on the eastern side of the state and it's still crappy on the western side. Such a nice, easy first backpacking outing of the season that it will need to be a tradition for as long as we are in Seattle! This was the first time backpacking a place for the second time for me, so it's really nice knowing the route and the camp spots and going back to something familiar. A group of 8 of us + 3 dogs  made our route from Seattle to Ancient Lakes, just under 3 hours away and left rain and gloom for sun and warmth. The hike in is just 2 miles, and then we found a spot on top of a hill to set up camp with great views to boot. It even had a great fireplace with rock "chairs" set up. I forgot to mention that all of us logged out a piece of wood, or if you're my husband you bring the whole bundle in your arms on the hike out and do a constant bicep curl for 40 minutes. This year we were prepared for an epic fire unlike the last. Most places in Washington it seems you can't have fires in the backcountry, so this was a real luxury. After setting up camp and eating lunch we decided to hike the loop we did last year as well. You think that after doing it last year the route would be clear, but it's actually quite confusing and just feels like you are off trail the entire time. We went up left of the big waterfall and climbed up a steep, loose rock section, that was rewarded with fantastic views at the top. We hiked further back to another waterfall and climbed up this section as well for even better views. We then meandered through the back around a lake, up more sketchy rocks and then down to what was a dried out lake last year and is now a small lake. Once we climbed out of that area we then could eventually see the massive area that all the tents were at and where we were camped. It was not as busy as last year when we went, so I think it is better to go before the mass of crowds make their way out there. We made dinner, hot toddy's, had a fire and s'mores, and great company made for an awesome night. The sun and warmth was a great reminder that the gloom of winter will not last forever in western Washington and that indeed summer will eventually come. It will still be a long time until we can make it into the high country for backpacking, but there are some great low land options in the mean time. Be careful with dogs out in this area though, Cooper brought home a tick for us- yuck! They are already out there. As the summer heats up this area gets rattlesnakes as well.