This week Johnna came to visit and we had an amazing time traveling around Washington to see cool mountains, beaches, rain forests, and more! I worked a lot during the week, but was able to use some leave time to go on a much needed vacation around the state.
Olympic Peninsula
The day after picking up Johnna from the airport, we got up bright and early to backpack in the Hoh Rain Forest. We had wanted to check out some other trails recommended to us by family and friends in other parks, but those trails were all closed for one reason or another due to various natural disasters. I definitely do not regret going to the peninsula though!
The goal of our trip was to get to the Olympus Guard Station about 9 miles from the visitor center, and it was an extremely scenic hike! We started by doing the iconic Hall of Mosses trail that features plenty of old-growth and mossy trees. It was absolutely gorgeous and unlike anything Johnna and I had seen before.
Then we hiked on the Hoh River Trail to the Olympus Guard Station, which was a pretty easy trip! It was 9 miles one way but it was a river hike, so we were relatively flat. It took us about 6 hours to get there on the way there and about 5 on the way back. We stopped for lunch at 5-mile island and got that really cool panorama above.
From there we met up with a park ranger who checked our wilderness permits, and headed on our way to the camp – braving two river crossings in ice cold water!!! My feet were the coldest they’ve been in a long time.
We made it to the Olympus Guard Station just before sunset and had a wonderful curry dinner with instant rice. We were pretty tired so it was easy to fall asleep right afterwards, and the area we were staying at was so quiet that I only woke up twice the whole night!
The hike back was just as easy, but we had to do those river crossings again, which were not fun! We got back to the car just in time for lunch, where we went to the Hard Rain Cafe and got some fried fish and chips.
While hiking and at the visitor center, we had heard people talk about this place called Ruby Beach, and we decided to check that out with the rest of our day. After lunch we stopped in Forks, WA to get some ice cream and turned back south to see this beach that everyone had been talking about!
Our final stop for the day before we headed back to North Bend was the world’s largest sitka spruce tree! This thing was huge and it was worth a stop on the way back.
Pride
After that exciting trip to the peninsula, we then went to the Seattle Pride Parade and Festival which was so busy! There were about 5 times more people at this than were at folk life, which is saying a lot. We saw all kinds of floats and groups marching, but our favorite had to have been the public transit float, which used a bus and they even let people get on and off the bus! Even the space needle got in on the festivities.
Work
Believe it or not I actually worked while Johnna was in town! We had a major timber deadline to meet by the end of the week which involved cruising a timber sale for 3 days straight. You can read about cruising in my previous posts, but the short of it is that it’s basically a way to estimate the volume of timber present in a particular sale area by systematically sampling only certain trees. There are different methods that produce different results and levels of accuracy depending on what is needed, but we mostly stuck to the methods we normally use in our region. The cruising was a good time for me to practice for the upcoming test that I’ll be taking this week to become a qualified cruiser!
In Region 6 there are 4 levels of cruiser going from beginner to expert:
- Qualified Cruiser
- This qualification allows you to be able to cruise on your own since cruising is a legal rubber stamp and affects advertised timber sale vales. There’s a written test you have to take that goes along with a field practical. You have to be knowledgeable in species, measurement techniques, how to assign defects to trees, and calculating various formulas to get this qualification.
- Advanced Cruiser
- A step above Qualified Cruiser – they are allowed more responsibility with cruising and can design cruises. That means that they can tell qualified cruisers what the rules are for cruising a particular sale, which is extremely important because everything comes down to the cruise plan when you are out in the woods.
- Check Cruiser
- These guys go in behind the advanced and qualified cruisers and double check to make sure that the measurements are all correct or within a certain tolerance. If the cruisers are frequently making mistakes it’s possible the check cruiser could take away their certification.
- Master Cruiser
- These guys are extremely knowledgeable about cruising and are allowed to set the direction of cruising programs for forests and regions. I’m not sure how you become one, but it seems like if you are an advanced cruiser for long enough the timber gods smile upon you and your master cruiser certification card floats down from the sky while an angelic choir sings.
I’m hoping to get my qualified cruiser certification because that would make things a lot easier with my job, and it would be cool to have for someone who hasn’t even graduated from their degree program yet! But we will see after this week if that actually happens…
Seattle
After cruising was done, Johnna and I spent her last few days here in Seattle where we saw so much cool stuff!
We started off the weekend by volunteering at the Beacon Food Forest pulling some weeds for them. It was great to meet people from the city and to check out the awesome work that they’ve been doing to help grow so many cool plants for people to use! When we were volunteering someone brought us homemade rhubarb jam and cookies that they made to share. It was delicious!
We started off our day Friday by taking the commuter bus to the city (so we wouldn’t have to find parking) and seeing the space needle and Chihuly Glass Garden.
The glass garden was really cool, but it was $30 to get in and we were only there for about an hour and some change. I definitely would have liked to have seen more exhibits but I think my main issue with it was that there were SO MANY PEOPLE there!!! It was so crowded and people had to wait in lines to enter rooms and take photos with the exhibits, which was very frustrating. Johnna and I got there in the middle of the day on a Friday which is probably why, but just keep that in mind if you are planning your visit there.
The Space Needle has a timed entry system, but I think no matter what you do the space needle will always be crowded. It took us about 30 minutes to get from the start of the line to the elevator, but the views on top of the space needle were absolutely worth it! It’s not something I would ever do again, but it was definitely cool to check out once while Johnna was in town. My favorite part about the space needle is the lower deck which has a glass floor and rotates around. I could have spent hours on there. I enjoyed getting to see the Cascade and Olympic Mountains too! We went on a nice clear day, which was great for visibility.
From the space needle we had lunch at a nice noodle nook and went on our way to the Seattle Library, which seems to have been recently reconstructed with a very cool design! We walked around and appreciated the architecture while ending our visit by looking at the Russian book section.
We finished the day by seeing the Washington Park Arboretum, getting to glimpse a gentle giant (sequoia), then taking the bus back home!
On Saturday we met up with some friends for Dim Sum and got a nice tour of the International District – especially some of the cool book stores and boba tea shops. We ate at a place called Honey Court Seafood which filled us up for most of the day!
We also checked out the Frye Art Museum, which has free admission and cool independent artists. The theme when we went was “trios”, and there were a bunch of pieces that were grouped in threes together. It was super neat! I liked that they highlighted indigenous art and LGBTQ+ artists in the gallery.
My favorite exhibit was one that featured an artist who grew up in one of the many Japanese internment camps during World War II. She had artifacts and photographs, and the whole exhibit was told from a unique perspective which I appreciated.
I only took two photos in the museum, but links to their collections can be found above!
We were still full from breakfast so we took a trip up to the Ballard Locks and Fish Ladder, which we had read about online. The locks allow ships to pass from Lake Union and Lake Washington into Salmon Bay and from there into the Puget Sound and even the Pacific Ocean! This was one of my favorite stops on our whole trip, and I think it was Johnna’s too. We got to watch some of those ships go from one body of water to another and it was really neat! I wish we had more time to check out the botanical gardens there, which apparently have species from all over the world collected from various ships passing through.
Johnna’s favorite part was getting to see the salmon ladder and their migration! There were even some sea lions in Salmon Bay, which we both loved and didn’t expect.
Mount Saint Helens
The next day we got up early to go to Ape Cave, which is a lava tube located in the southern portion of the park. Unfortunately most of the hikes we wanted to do were in the north, which were impassable either because of landslides taking out the road or because snow hasn’t melted yet at some elevations!
The caves were absolutely gorgeous and unlike anything else I had done so far in Washington. I had never been inside a cave without lighting and it was interesting to be able to experience that first hand for only the $2 recreation fee. The texture of the tube was very interesting and didn’t show up well on camera, but if you’re in the area it’s worth a trip!
That took us about an hour and a half, and then we drove around trying to figure out where to hike next since the place we wanted to go was still covered in snow. We ended up going to the visitor center that was open and then to a place nearby the mountain called Coldwater Lake, which was created by the 1980 eruption!
We hiked around and even dipped our feet in the waters of coldwater lake. It was a hot day and the water felt pretty nice!
Goodbyes
We spent Johnna’s final day in Seattle wrapping up the loose ends from the beginning of our trip. We went and saw West Seattle on the ferry, got lunch at Din Tai Fung, which is an amazing bao bun and dumpling restaurant, and got to ride the train around the city which was a lot of fun!
Johnna’s plane left that evening and we had to say our goodbyes. Luckily we’ll both be back from our summer travels in only a month! It seems like I just got here in Washington but I’ll be leaving in less than 30 days as of publishing this.
I’ll have a lot more to update you all on so stay tuned!
Mushrooms and Arches 
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