I’ve obviously not been hiking as much as usual, because this short but steep hike knocked me on my butt earlier this week! I had planned on spending a week in the Wallowa Mountains of Eastern Oregon, but the wildfire smoke is heavy there and I didn’t want to make the drive and spend days trying to simply breath. I opted for the Olympic Peninsula instead, and was able to get a last-minute permit for Grand Lake.
The drive up to Hurricane Ridge is windy and beautiful, especially stopping to look down to the coast and Straight of Juan De Fuca and seeing the thick cloud layer below, when you’re above it in the sunshine. Vancouver Island, Canada, is visible in the distance.
From Hurricane Ridge, it’s an 8-mile narrow dirt road to Obstruction Point Trailhead.
This is what I call a “reverse hike” – you hike down to the destination, which means that it’s a climb to get back to your car. It’s less than 4 miles and 1800 feet of descent from the TH to Grand Lake, across exposed Lillian Ridge (definitely not to be attempted in bad weather!), and down down down down to Grand Valley and the 3 lakes there: Grand, Moose, and Gladys. I saw 1 marmot and 1 rabbit while hiking. Along the way I stopped often to take in the many layers of the Olympic Mountains.
After setting up camp I sat out at a rocky beach in my amazing Helinox camping chair and read for hours in the sunshine, watching fish jump and soaking in the solitude. There is a beautiful waterfall nearby, well worth a short stroll to see.
Wildflowers were stunning, and surprisingly the mosquitoes were out but not horrendous like I was expecting. I saw many long-time flower friends, and also several that were new to me that I haven’t seen at Mt. Rainier.
