Vancouver Island Crew On The Olympic Peninsula

About our adventure with @makenzysmith, @stasher_bc, @colourful_cassandra, @alexanderthegreat, and @emily3iverson.

We invited Makenzy (@makenzysmith), Stasher (@stasher_bc), Cassandra (@colourful_cassandra), Alex (@alexanderthegreat), and Emily (@emily3iverson) to join us on a trip to across the North Olympic Peninsula at the end of April. We were chartered around by Olympic Hiking Co. (@hikeolympic) for 6 amazing days of adventure!

On the first day of our trip, Stasher, Cassandra, Emily and Alex took the Coho ferry from Victoria to meet up with us, Tommy and Makenzy in downtown Port Angeles. We started the trip with an epic exploration of Sol Duc Falls where the light was hitting everything just right and the river was raging. Next we headed Sequim for dinner, and to Dungeness Spit for a beautiful golden hour and sunset. We checked into the huge Admiral's House on Officer's Row at Fort Worden - what an amazing place to stay!

The next morning, a few of us woke up early to catch sunrise at the Point Wilson Lighthouse. We had a fantastic breakfast at the Hudson Point Cafe in Port Townsend, and then we went on a 4-hour whale watching tour with Puget Sound Express. We were all completely thrilled to see two massive humpback whales jumping right out of the ocean! There was also some pretty delicious coffee cake and warm apple cider to keep us energized during the trip. After whale watching we headed south towards Rocky Brook Falls, and then had a great dinner at the Olympic Timberhouse.

On our second morning, we spent a few hours exploring the bunkers at Fort Worden, before packing up and heading to Sequim for a first-class, delicious lunch at Nourish. Then we headed up to the Elwha River Dam Restoration site to learn about how the river has changed since the largest dam removal project in the history of the United States. We were planning on heading up to Hurricane Ridge that evening, but since the mountains were looking pretty cloudy from Port Angeles, we decided to have an easy evening with a great dinner at Sabai Thai.

We got up at 4am the next day to attempt to catch sunrise at Hurricane Ridge; unfortunately the road was closed due to a snowfall warning, so we turned the van around and made it to Ediz Hook to catch the sun lighting up the mountains from water level. After a quick breakfast, we had an exclusive tour of the Port Angeles Underground, that was created when the city streets were raised over 100 years ago. Next we headed called ahead and confirmed the road to Hurricane Ridge was re-opened, and headed up to the top to finally capture those unbeatable views. We decided we hadn't had enough mountains for the day, so we headed out behind Lake Crescent to hike the trail to the summit of Pyramid Peak. That evening we checked into several great cabins at Huckleberry Lodge in Forks, and hiked down to Second Beach for a sunset campfire.

The next morning we had incredible eggs, pancakes and cowboy coffee made over the fire at Huckleberry Lodge before heading off on our way to the Rialto Beach for a low tide hike to Hole in the Wall. Next we visit the Hoh Rain Forest where we were lucky enough to enounter two Roosevelt Elk hanging out just off the trail. After a beautiful dinner at Kalaloch Lodge, we ended our day with a Ruby Beach sunset before heading back to Huckleberry Lodge for our last night.

On our last morning together we took a kayaking tour of Freshwater Bay with Adventure Through Kayaking in Port Angeles. Then we sent Stasher, Emily, Cassandra and Alex back to Canada on the Coho ferry.

Check out some of the aboslutely wonderful images the crew captured on the tour below: