pnw trip: olympic national park, sol duc

leaving north cascades national park was a little sad, putting those mountains behind us when we'd only just met them. but headed down to sea level and sea shore, back through seattle, and slingshotted through the metro area to get to the olympic peninsula was a pretty great thing to look forward to. as we made our way toward the olympic peninsula, just southwest of seattle and the puget sound, we got to use bridges and ferries as we moved between land masses. the ferry system has it pretty dialed in over there. 

and then we arrived! ready for rainforest adventures, and this place did not disappoint.

we drove in along crescent lake

and stopped for a quick hike from a visitor's center to a waterfall. the trees along the path were dripping with moss and signs of rainforest. i was a little enamored with the trees.

find james!

and our first hiking destination: marymere falls

the mountains in the olympic peninsula (the olympics!) were smaller than the cascades, but gorgeous. 

we made our way to our campsite at sol duc campground. the campsites are really cool, because the old growth forest has almost no understory, which means wide open running and play space under a tall dense canopy. as soon as we set up camp, i regretted only one night planned to stay there (note: i felt this way at every campsite and every park, the winsome and urgent regret of "not enough time"!).

also, pro tip: if your child wets the bed on a camping trip, hand washing the sheets will only get you so far if you plan to hand them to dry in a rainforest. see those sheets behind james? they took 4 days to dry. 

a tiny creek ran alongside our campsite, and david made his way back and forth across the bridging downed trees, much to the delight of the kids. 

check out this site. heaven.

in the morning, we did some more hiking before packing it all up and heading to the coastal part of the park.

the sol duc fall made an excellent morning destination. the light filtering down through the trees plus the waterfall spray made for a very mystical experience. 

we watched for salmon leaping upstream, but no luck.

and back in the van,  these two were breaking all the usual food rules.

off to the beach!