Day 4: Hiking along Lake Crescent
Saturday, August 28, 2004

Today we went for a hike along Lake Crescent, a beautiful lake about 10 miles west of Port Angeles. Again the skies were overcast, but it didn't rain, so we were okay.

In the morning we decided to check out Sal's Bakery instead of having our usual bagel at Olympic Bagel Company and it turned out to be only okay. We both had some pastries and ordered sandwiches that we'd take with us on the hike. (Those also turned out to be okay.) We made a pitstop at Safeway for water and fruit and off we went.

We thought that before our hike we might first drive up to Hurricane Ridge, the highest point in the Olympic Mountains, but the skies were overcast so first we stopped in the ranger station near Port Angeles to ask about visibility. No point in going to a vista point if all you'll see are clouds. There was a live camera up at the peak and the rangers were able to take a snapshot from their computer to show us what it looked like. Mostly you saw clouds with a hint of the treeline, so it didn't seem worth the 40 minute drive to the top. Instead, we headed over to Lake Crescent. On our way out of the ranger station, some rangers had set up a tent with the sign "Save endangered forest rangers." They asked us to fill out a 3-question survey, which we were happy to do — except that the questions were so biased that we had to decline. They were something like "The forest service may have to cut [some very large number] rangers because of lack of funds. Do you believe the forest rangers provide a useful service?" Or "President Bush wants to bulldoze all the trees in the forest. Do you think trees are an important part of the ecosystem?" (Well, okay, not that bad, but you get the idea.) Who knows how they would use data like that? We told them we were certainly in support of them but couldn't in good conscience fill out such a biased survey, and to their credit they said they understood and suggested maybe we could write that down on the survey instead. We didn't that would do much good and so declined, and they politely thanked us for our time.

Spruce Railroad Trail

Our kayaking guide from yesterday had told us about Spruce Railroad Trail, which was past East Point of the Lake Crescent, just after the Log Cabin camping area. He said we'd be walking along a railroad trestle and that it was a beautiful, mellow trail. He was right that the trail was beautiful and mellow, mostly flat the whole way as it followed the perimeter of the lake, but we didn't see any railroad trestle, which was a disappointment for both of us. Walendo loves to check out old remnants like that, and I figured it'd make for some good photos. You could tell in a few places that there used to be a railroad going through there (apparently built for logging during WWI), but the only remnants were some logs jutting out of the bank to shore it up and a short tunnel that had been blasted out of the rock near the edge of the lake. No trestles to be found. Oh well, it was still a very pretty hike.

The trail was lined with moss-covered evergreens and maples and zillions of ferns, similar to the Hoh Rainforest trail, plus you got some great views of the lake, which was a gorgeous turquoise blue color in the shallower areas. There were some houses and resorts on the lake, but it wasn't packed with them, and we saw quite a few power boats tooling around on the lake, some of them with water skiers in tow. It seemed to be a pretty popular trail, and later in the day we encountered quite a few mountain bicyclists, some of them families. That gives you a sense of how mellow the trail was.

Lake Crescent

We walked about 3 miles out, continuing to hope for a railroad trestle around the bend, and finally ran into some people who were familiar with the trail who told us there weren't any, so we turned back. Earlier, we'd stopped about a mile or so in for lunch at a little swimming cove where there were a couple of ropes dangling from the trees. Two older men and a young man (probably one of the men's son) were swinging from the ropes and dropping into the water. It was fun to watch the men acting like boys. One of them kept grabbing the rope too low so he'd get dragged into the water on the downward swing instead of going to the peak of the swing and letting go. After a few tries he got it right and splashed in with the best of them.

Impressive tree near trailhead

I stopped along the trail from time to time to take photos but I wasn't feel especially inspired, so my crop of photos was fairly thin. I took some interesting ones of a spider on its web, but the breeze kept blowing the web around and I had to use a slow shutter speed so I'm not sure how crisp any of them will be. I took a few shots that give a sense of the trail but I don't think I took any great images. I was okay with that, though. It was kind of nice to walk along and let my mind wander for part of the time instead of always looking for photos. In general this trip has been good for letting my mind relax and not thinking about photos constantly. Of course I still think about photography a lot, but not as much as usual.

We took our time on the trail and ended up spending about 4 ½ hours out there, starting out around 11:30 and finishing around 4:00pm. We considered going up to Hurricane Ridge after our hike because it had cleared up a bit, but we ended up deciding against it because it still didn't seem clear enough. Instead, we headed back to town and got an early dinner at a Chinese restaurant called China First. It didn't look that promising from the front but Walendo wanted to go there because they had a buffet. All I can say is that the food tasted a little better than it looked. Every Chinese restaurant we passed said they were voted the best Chinese food of 200x, so who knows. Inside they had little certificates and it looks like they gave out prizes for best lunch and best dinner, and had "finalists," so maybe they can all count themselves as prize winners. In any case, the meal satisfied Walendo's Chinese requirement, and we figure his presence - the only Asian in the place - gave some reassurance to other diners there that the place must be good because a Chinese person was eating there.

Having given up on the chocolate ice cream possibilities of this town, we went to Safeway to get some gold old reliable Haagen Dazs pops, which were of course quite tasty. Then we came back to the room and did our laundry and relaxed. In fact, Walendo is so relaxed right now that he's dozing away as I write up the events of the day and check out the photos I took. I'm making my way quickly through my book, Moneyball, which I'm finding very interesting and at the same time depressing that people can be so unwilling to think despite having huge financial incentives to do so.

Tomorrow we head over to Whidbey Island via the ferry from Port Townsend.

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