So Wed-Fri I went on my first combo hiking/camping trip! Wooooooo! It was quite the adventure, as it rained the whole time :) I went with my friends Gina and Isabelle, as well as some of their new coworkers. We drove through the Olympic Peninsula to the Third Beach trailhead, near La Push, WA. Loaded up our packs and started the 7 mile hike to Toleak Point...awww, we look so happy and dry here :)
This was the most diverse hike I've done...we started in the forest, then made our way to the coast and walked along the Pacific...now see that cliff up ahead? Yes, we're about the climb up that mud-slide with nothing but a rope!
After making it to the top the hike continues through more beautiful forests...the rain didn't get us down (yet) but the trail was extremely muddy...
...back down to the beach, stunning views...
Now here we are after taking off our shoes to ford the creek! It was sooooooo cold, but I felt like quite a pioneer, lol. Thankfully our new friend Chris, on the right, saved our butts the entire trip! He was always the first to go ahead and lift, guide, or steady the rest of us along...
By the time we made it to our campsite I was quite exhausted, taking off my pack after 4+ hours I thought I would float away...Here is the view of the beach from our site. We set up camp and unsuccessfully attempted a fire. This was my first time using my new tent, and unfortunately we set it up wrong, lol, so that first night we couldn't even sit up inside. It rained the entire night and in the morning the tent was drooping down about a foot from our faces, dripping water, and the floor was wet. What a night...
Thankfully I did stay mostly dry though, and reasonably warm, but that next morning I woke up with absolutely no intentions of leaving my sleeping bag, lol. The rain always sounds much worse from inside the tent though, so eventually I got up and changed back into my damp clothes (yay!). We set out for a 5 mile day hike further down the beach, and back into the forest. The most scary part of the trip was definitely climbing this ladder up a vertical rock wall! The steps were slippery, and the rope was painful to hold with wet, numb hands...eek! The view from the top was worth it though...
The hike took us through lots of mud, over and around many downed trees, and ended at a waterfall. We debated trying to cross the river and continue along the trail, but after seeing what it would take to get across, the consensus was to head back and explore the beach. Turns out climbing down the rock wall was in fact much more frightening than the climb up...
After surviving the descent of doom and death, we booked it back to camp....okay, so I booked it back to camp, haha. We admired this eagle for quite a while, then attempted to explore some tide pools, but at this point the wind was really strong and my clothes were soaking wet....
This was probably the one moment during the trip that I thought, "this sucks"...the only dry clothes I had left were a pair of long johns, 2 shirts and a coat. So I peeled off the wet clothes and hid in my sleeping bag. Aaron had the same idea as me to head back to camp, so we ended up chatting from inside our two separate tents. It was pretty funny, thinking up games we could play to occupy ourselves for what we imagined would be the remainder of the afternoon and evening spent trapped in our somewhat dry and somewhat warm tents. While Aaron and I cracked ourselves up playing hangman, thankfully the rest of our friends were still on the beach braving the cold/wind/rain, filtering water from a nearby river, and discovering a stash of dry drift wood!! A fire was started, and we were able to partially dry some of our clothes and boots, as well as share stories, poetry, and s'mores around the fire! Ahhhh, this is why I love camping :) With my tent adjusted for night 2, we slept much better, but still awoke every few hours...amazed that the rain was not letting up! The entire night it continued...we made another fire that morning, changed into our damp clothes, then packed up camp and hiked back!
A few surprises on the way back included the mudslide being extra slippery after 3 days of rain...as well as the creek we walked through barefoot on the way there, being a raging river on the way back! We had to go further inland and find logs to walk/crawl across....no one fell in! But then walking back along the beach we had a couple close calls with the tide, lol.
I expected the hike out to be extra dreadful and long, but thankfully it went quick! And the rain was more of a mist after we got going...we had intended to go snowshoeing at Hurricane Ridge on our way back, but canceled that plan...no need to be over-achievers :) Instead we stopped at a diner in Forks (where the movie Twilight is set!) for some hot food, yum!...then made another pit-stop at DQ further down the road. It was a late night, and I had heaps of soaked camping gear to deal with....but now we're planning our next adventure! Looks like snowshoeing will be Thursday, and then camping trip #2, potentially to the Eastern Cascades, will be this weekend.
I love my life.
