PNT Section 9, Part 1: The Olympic Mountains

My first day in the Olympic National Forest was quintessentially pacific-northwestern. A thick canopy blocked out what little light pierced the gloomy clouds. Every bend in the trail revealed a new stream crossing or waterfall. Damp ferns reach out and drenched my shoes. I carefully stepped over the slimy, delicate critters that dotted the path. 

Tonight would be my first night spent within the bounds of Olympic National Park, which meant having my daily mileage again dictated by the camping permits I had been issued. There was some degree of comfort in knowing exactly where I would pitch my tent for the remainder of my trip. I had intentionally signed up for low miles, wanting to give myself a buffer in case the steep climbs and tidal restrictions were more difficult than anticipated. 

Shelters

The next day was again misty and overcast. I felt myself moving slowly, partly because I had not packed nearly enough food for this section. While I’d previously echoed Scarlett O’Hara’s vow to never go hungry again, I’d balked at the weight of five days of food in Anacortes, and tossed out a few rations of snacks. But now, only a day out from town, I was wishing my pack were more weighed down with Honey Buns. 

Is it just my stomach, or does this mushroom look like a donut?

As I went further into the national park, I began to see more signs of human use. Historic shelters and outhouses dotted the trail. While some of my permitted nights allowed me to stay in these shelters, I found them a bit spooky, and thought myself unlikely to take that option if there were tenting spaces nearby. 

Constance Pass

The sun woke me up the next morning, heating up my tent. The light lifted my mood, and made the prospect of my morning climb more appealing. The assent over Constance Pass would be the steepest yet on this trail, gaining over one-thousand feet of elevation in the last mile before the top. After the mostly-flat section on Whidbey Island, my calves complained the whole way up. 

That afternoon, both Lentil and Nick caught up to me, and then later passed me, their projected camping sites further along than mine. Lentil and I discussed the prospect of motivation in thru-hiking, and he shared with me that he had attempted this trail several years ago, but had quit in the first hundred miles. This surprised me, as my perception was that he currently found the hike leisurely. Or at least, he seemed to, often reporting thirty-plus-mile days. Conversely, while I couldn’t dream of reaching similar miles on PNT, I also couldn’t imagine quitting. I came to terms with that fact that in thru-hiking, I am more of a tortoise than a hare. 

That evening, the clouds rolled back in. By the time I crawled in my sleeping bad, mist was drifting into my tent. I tucked my entire head inside, hoping to keep myself dry. Thunder and pounding rain woke me up in the early morning, and I counted the hours until I would have no choice put to emerge in the downpour. 

It’s called a Rainforest

Packing up in persistent rain is a frustrating task. Moisture coated the inside of my single-wall tent, soaking any part of me that touched it. My chilly hands struggled to stuff my quilt, sticky with mist, into my pack. Swollen with rain, my tent didn’t fit into it’s stuff sack, and I settled for shoving it into my back mesh pocket, which had the effect of pulling my weight backward and interfering with my balance. I struggled to get my single-use poncho on over the top of my misshapen pack. Damp and awkward, I felt a kinship with the slugs that covered the ground. 

That afternoon, I passed through a burn area. After being constantly showered with moisture by every canopy leaf and fern frond in the luscious rainforest, I welcomed the break in the plant life. In the current weather, it was difficult to imagine that anything could ever burn, here. 

Soon after, I hit the 1,100 mile-marker. True to my tradition on this trail, I constructed it from materials I felt best exemplified the current section; soaked fallen lichen. 

 This end-stage mile-marker invited me to look inward, and consider the totality of my hike. While I felt I should have been enjoying this section of trail, with it’s well-marked routes, plentiful water, and lack of bugs, I couldn’t help but look ahead to life post-trail. I dreamed of rushing into more adventures. I vowed to travel more, possibly even live in another country; I wanted to spend more time close to nature, maybe take up homestead-style farming; and I wanted to push myself physically, perhaps take up new sports like climbing. But I also knew that once I returned to the daily grind of capitalism, and the glow and clarity of life on trail wore off, these dreams would seem much less attainable. 

That evening, the rain and my soaked tent drove me to do something I never thought I would- sleep in a shelter. The dirt floor and mousey smell was not the most welcoming, but it was better than trying to slide inside my shelter like a wet swimsuit. I hung up what gear I could on protruding nails, and enjoyed the sound of rain hitting the roof. I was starting to understand why shelter-hopping was so appealing on trails like the AT, where rain could be a daily feature. 

Elwha River

The next morning, I packed up quickly, eager to begin the final miles into town. Nick soon caught up with me, and we discovered we had spent the night at the same shelter area, in different structures, without noticing one another. The miles down old forest service roads passed quickly as we chatted. 

The power of the Elwha River was evident from first-glance. The roaring water could be heard almost a mile before we reached it. Huge log jams crisscrossed it’s flow. A curve in the river had washed out an entire road years before, and the attempt to restore it seemed to have been deemed futile. The campground and ranger’s station the road used to lead to were eerily abandoned, already being taken over by the encroaching forest. 

A the remnants of the Elwha dam, removed over a decade ago, still loomed over the waters. Informational signs informed passersby of the dam’s deconstruction, and the return of native fish to the landscape. I would later learn that this year was the first summer local indigenous people would be able to return to these waters and partake in their birthright of catching steelhead and salmon. Witnessing this process of the landscape returning to it’s former intended state filled me with an indescribable emotion- something between awe and justice. 

Shortly after the dam, Nick and I entered a busy parking area, and quickly found a hitch into town with two kind local ladies. He already had plans to resupply and get back on trail, while my permit dates required I take a zero in Port Angeles. We bid each other farewell again, knowing that because of our permits, this would be the last time our paths would cross on this trail.