Mountains & the Sea

A sunny morning started the day so I went for my plan of going up to Hurricane Ridge. This is over a mile high and gives great views into the Olympic mountains and across to Vancouver Island. The weather forecast was for the better conditions to be in the morning with cloud and possible showers in the afternoon.
The drive up is a constant climb, along increasingly windy roads. My ticket from the Ranger at Hoh Rain Forest was good for entry here so no additional entry fees required. Once at the visitor centre (at about 9:40) asked for information about the trails and was told that the road goes further on to a trail that leads to the summit of Hurricane Hill at a height of 5,757 feet. The climb up is steep in places but a tarmac trail makes it straight forward. Strolled up taking pictures of the view and close up shots of plants along the way.

Once at the top the views were impressive in all directions.There was a lot of snow on the high peaks and also in the sheltered slopes below the summit. As it was quite early in the day there weren’t many people about and I had the summit to my self for a while. Well almost to myself, perched happily on a rock was a large Olympic Marmot (only found in these mountains). I called him Malcolm.

Once on the way down again wildlife seemed everywhere, despite the increased number of hikers. A chipmunk went for me at one point and Ravens and a Golden Eagle flew around the rocks.
The weather was starting of close in so back to the information centre (which unlike the one at Hoh had a cafe) for Chicken Caesar salad (good to eat something green at last) and drive back to Port Angeles (17 miles) to refuel the car.
I refuelled at a Safeway station as they had a ‘pay at pump’ system; ah this will make it easy I thought. Unfortunately, when entering my credit card it asked for my home zip code! The attendant in the kiosk was very helpful and carried out the transaction in the ‘normal’ way. Incidentally, the cost was $2.95 per (US) gallon.
To finish the day I went down to the waterfront to get some pictures and instead of ferries and boats I saw a Great Northern Diver (Loon) in the harbour. These are incredibly rare in the UK but here it was just swimming and diving in the harbour.

Once finished a guy approached me for a chat and casually said I should be careful taking pictures around ports and transport links. He seemed happy I was not a threat and we proceeded to have a very intersting chat about the area and comparisons with Europe.  He finished up by recommending a drive out onto the spit protecting the harbour which I did for a few more photos (but not of the Coast Guard boats) before returning to the hotel at the end of a very interesting day.