for my friends who are moms

Gee works one week on and one week of. So when I left Salt Lake City, I figured I would definitely see her on one of her crazy road trip adventures. It was only a few months before she graced the area with her presents. After spending much of the first part of the week riding bikes on the many trails in the PNW, she made her way out to the Peninsula. Shortly after, we set off for a 3 sport weekend. 

Our first stop was the Elwha river. This river is overflowing with local history. From the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe who has lived in the area for generations, to the multiple dams built on it, to the recent demolishing of the dams and all of the dynamics that followed those changes, this river has a beautiful and special story (Here is a pretty cool podcast on the river). It was pretty hot out and even though our end goal was to make it to some hot springs, we ended up turning around to swim in the river and set up camp early.

The next morning we set off for the cost to hike out to Scott Creek, where I think I picked up some giardia, and thankfully no one else did. The Olympic National Park stretches most of the west coast of the state of Washington, and the trail along it is best traveled at low tide. We had to scale and descend a few cliffs in order to make it to our site. 

Since we had hit the trail so early to take advantage of the low tide, we had the rest of the day to explore our small section of coast. Two sea stacks shot up out of the ocean directly in front of our campsite. We had all brought packrafts to paddle and set off to explore them. A few small currents circled through some exposed rocks on the back side of the first sea stack, which made for some fun squirrely maneuvers.

We decided to explore the next sea stack. Failing to realize how protected we were in the wind shadow of the first sea stack, we were suddenly caught up in 3 foot swells. The fact we were actually on the open ocean and not in a protected cove (where I have done the majority of my Washington sea kayaking), became evident quickly. Considering Kurt was in a boat that was leaking and made for someone a foot shorter, we turned around about halfway to the second sea stack. The incoming tide made the paddle back a little longer, but had also swallowed up most of the rock obstacles. 

We woke up to low tide the next morning and the ocean almost seemed to mock us. There had been an above average 11 foot swing from high tide to low tide. A dry passage all the way to the sea stacks, across the seaweed covered rocks appeared as the water had seemingly disappeared.