Day 30: Hoh Rain Forest and Ruby Beach (Washington, Oregon)

We got up, packed up, and headed into the interior of Olympic National Park. The park has many record setting trees, and we passed one of them, a Sitka tree:

We arrived at the Hoh Rainforest, a signature sight in Olympic National Park. This is the northern-most rain forest in the world and receives 147 inches of rain per year.

The heavy rain means everything is covered in moss. Everything:

We took a short hike through this area, and these were some of the sights: 

It’s a unique forest – it smelled and felt extremely fresh and clean. The trees are dense and seem to hang over you. Just as you would picture a rainforest, actually.

Next we followed the main park road which eventually paralleled the Washington coast for several miles. There are many places to stop and visit the beach, and we decided to do so at Ruby beach, which features many rock pillars and islands. Here’s the one that will be particularly memorable to me:

I thought I’d climb around on it a bit and see if I could reach the top. Well, just a foot or two shy of the top my handhold crumbled and, sure enough, I was free-falling to the rocky base. Mid-fall I remember thinking “uh-oh, this is bad!” I don’t know for sure but I think I fell about 15 feet. I landed on my feet first, then rolled onto my knees, then rolled down some additional rocks over my side, and eventually found myself in a prone position near the sand.

This doesn't capture it very well, but basically
I fell down the length of this.

Soaking in salt water...

In retrospect it was pretty miraculous that I didn’t break any bones, although Sharon exhausted the first aid kit to patch up my hands and knees! Still pretty stiff all over as I write this, but feeling much better than yesterday. 

I did also manage to tear a hole in my favorite jeans. Note to fashion industry: this is the only acceptable explanation for “distressed”-style jeans.

We drove on, and here I should add that today a little a panic set in as we realized how (relatively) little time was left for us to conclude our trip and get back home. As a result, we’re going to need to skip a few sights that were on our original trip plan. I’ll have more thoughts on the overall trip once we get back home, but I can already tell you that we way underestimated the amount of time it would take to travel this far and see as much as we wanted to along the way. 

Our “going home” plan now is to skip Mount St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, Crater Lake, and Northern California on this trip. Instead, we’ll cut Southeast from here toward Boise, Salt Lake City, and then Denver. We hope to explore northern Utah and Colorado some before high-tailing it back home from there.

So, we ended up along the Columbia River Gorge in northern Oregon at a state park overlooking the river. 

Tomorrow will probably be a big driving day, so don’t get too excited.

Random Fact of the Day: In Oregon (and New Jersey) you can't fuel your own gas - all stations are full service.