Adventures of a Discoverer

Today I could hike one of the best trails in the Mt Rainier National Park: the Eunice Lake and Tolmie Lookout trail. It is a very interesting hike, with a number of different things to see. To get there, you need to enter the National Park via a rough dirt road (in case you're thinking about doing it too, regular cars can do it, as long as they drive slow and easy ), which itself has great views already, even if they are vertigo inducing. Interestingly enough the trailhead is at a lake itself: you park by Mowich Lake and you start the hike already at a high altitude. The trail starts flat but sooner than you think it becomes very steep - my thighs are still remembering that. It was a beautiful clear day, but that also meant that it was hot even at altitude, which resulted in a very sweaty hike. The rewards were great, though: soon we were reaching the subalpine fields, where the trees are much shorter and more sparse, and we started seeing amazing views of Mt Rainier nearby. After...

On the north side of the Olympic National Park you can find Lake Crescent, a lake with clear and calm waters, which is great for kayaking. That's exactly what I did today and it did not disappoint: at some points the water is so transparent that you feel like you're flying over the bottom of the lake. In fact, I've been on many bodies of water, but I have to say I've never seen such intense blue color as you can see in this lake. In addition, there is a pedestrian bridge on a small cove that's a favorite place for people to dive: for some reason that I'm not aware of this specific place is named "The Devil's Punchbowl" although I couldn't think of a more peaceful location. Finally, after I had enjoyed the waters for quite some time, I discovered that the Lake Crescent Lodge offers hydrobikes for rent, which is a water vessel I had never seen before. As the name implies, it's basically a bicycle on top of two floaters, and the chain is conne...

A long time ago, Native Americans in the northern Olympic Peninsula noted that there was a location close to a small river where water would come out of the ground with an intense smell and a scorching temperature. Many years later, a resort would be built at that location and take the Native American name: Sol Duc Hot Springs. The resort had soaking pools where people could just sit in the water and enjoy the pleasant feeling of warm water as well as take advantage of the supposed therapeutic effects of the many minerals dissolved in it. When the Olympic National Park was created, the resort was taken over by the National Park Service and now everybody can visit it, which I did yesterday. It was a beautiful day with intense blue skies contrasting with the lush green of hills around the hot springs, and I could sit in complete indolence soaking in the warm waters of the pools. This was one of the best feelings of full relaxation I had in a long time, leading to an inevitable conclusion...

On the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula, not far from the Northwest Corner, you can find the Salt Creek Recreation Area. It is a small park by the sea that is incredibly beautiful: you can see rock formations that turn into reefs which contain a number of tide pools with very clear water. Those pools are the homes of a lot of sea creatures and on a sunny day like today the whole place is brimming with natural beauty. I'll be the first to admit that the park is not convenient to get to: it's quite isolated and you have to drive for a good amount of time to get there. Nevertheless, it is such a beautiful place that's worth the visit. I'll let the images below describe that better than I could.