With COVID vaccines available and restrictions loosening, we were able to plan and go on another EPIC summer trip! We have been wanting to go to North Cascades National Park for many years now and we finally got to do it. Plus, since we were already up that way, we sung by Mt. St. Helens and finished off our Washington State adventure with another amazing visit to Olympic National Park.
Wildfire season started early this year which made Summer travel on the West coast a little trickier than usual. We have also been having record setting heatwaves in the Pacific North West...so we had to be extra flexible in our travel plan.
We started by heading North up to Mt. Shasta. Half of the mountain was on fire and it was 109 degrees outside, so that first night of camping was quickly switched to a hotel night stay at the Shasta Inn: Home of our favorite bar in town. The beds are not the most comfortable in the world, but it is a very nice spot to sleep. We have been through Shasta a dozen times and always make sure to stop by.
We headed out the next morning and continued North. Our plan was to stay at Memaloose State Park in Oregon along the Columbia River, however, the temps were still high and I sort of over estimated the amount of time it would take to drive that far. So we took a little detour and visited Oregon State University in the town of Corvallis, OR. We did another hotel night there and enjoyed having a shower and air conditioning. Corvallis is a beautiful little town right on the Williamette River.
On Day Three we visited Mt. St. Helens National Monument which erupted in 1980 and created the largest landslide in recorded history, forever changing the landscape of the surrounding area. We spent the day driving up the mountain and hiking around Coldwater Lake. We camped at Seaquest State Park at the base of the mountain. Unfortunately, camp fires were banned and mosquitos were fierce but we made the most of it and really enjoyed our campsite. Protip: I use this website CampsitePhotos.com to help get a preview of what our campsite will look like/how flat the parking spot might be/what the fire pit will look like and so on... I highly recommend it. It also lists their "best campsites" and I must fully agree with their suggestions. We were in site #40 and it was far away from everyone else, it was peaceful, beautiful and quiet.
Day Four we rocketed past Seattle and headed East into North Cascades National Park. This park is filled with glaciers, lakes and tree covered mountains. We were memorized by the tree lines on the mountains, they never stopped... the trees went all the way up to the top it was awesome. A few sections of the park have been hit by wildfires in past years and even when we were there, about 170 miles away on the other side of the park, there were road closures and active fires. We spent two and a half days exploring North Cascades, honestly, I think you could spend three full weeks here and not see it all. Many parts of the park are only accessible via backpacking in or boating in. What we did see by car and by day hikes was spectacular.
The park does not have an official entry gate and therefore does not charge or fee or require a pass (at this time...who knows if that will change in the future). We stayed in Goodell Creek Campground right on the Skagit River. I did not know ahead of time, that they launch rafting trips from our campground and it looked AMAZING!! Next time we will be doing that! We stayed in site #10 and it was perfect for the van. Sites 9, 11 and 12 were also great looking spots. #12 looked like it would have been the best spot, it was big and backed up right onto the river. Next time we go, we will try to get that spot.
Throughout our time in the park we drove along the N. Cascades Hwy to see the amazing lakes, rivers and waterfalls. We hiked along the trail for Pyramid Lake and saw a beautiful waterfall. We also hiked to Rainy Lake which was one of the most breathtaking places we have seen. We did not properly prepare for the mosquitos on that hike but the scenery helped keep our minds off of the bites. Much like the beautiful teal water in our trip to Banff 2019, the water in the lakes in North Cascades (like the big one Diablo Lake) is due to the glaciers that grind rocks into a fine powder that gets carried into the lakes. It is beautiful.
After our time in North Cascades NP we zipped back around Seattle and headed into the western point of Washington State into the Olympic Peninsula and towards Olympic National Park. We had visited here before in October 2019 and had absolutely fallen in love. So, when we knew we would be back up in Washington for this trip we added another visit in.
Day Six: We spent our 4 Year Wedding Anniversary hanging out and having a picnic lunch at Lake Crescent and then visited First Beach as well as Rialto Beach. This was the first day on the entire trip that we got to change into pants and I even sort of needed long sleeves. We are very spoiled where we live and very very infrequently see temperatures above 75 degrees, so we are very much not used to being hot. We also got to use the windshield wipers for a small part of the day and I honestly cannot tell you the last time we needed those in California.
After the beach we headed into the Hoh Rain Forest. At the base of Mt. Olympus, the Hoh Rain Forest gets an average of 140 inches of rain each year and is one of the only temperate rainforest in the United States. It is with out a doubt one of the most green and magical places we have ever seen. I was so happy to have booked a campsite in the campground as this year has seen an enormous increase in tourists visiting the park. Blame it on COVID, blame it on Instagram, or blame it on people like us sharing our amazing photos and adventures with people but whatever the reason, the secret is out and EVERYONE wants to go to the Hoh. For the first time ever, they had to implement a reservation system for the campground and, as parking for the trailheads is extremely limited, there was a line to even get into the gate. Luckily for us it was only an hour and a half, we heard from people who came in on other days that week it had been up to 4 hours to get in. Once you are in through, it truly is worth it. We camped in the C Loop at #77 and it was beautiful. Our spot was surrounded by ferns and moss and covered in an enchanted green, everywhere. We even had a visitor...a Roosevelt Elk came by for a bit. She was about 20 yards away from us and we made sure to keep a safe and respectful distance as we were in her house. After our elk encounter, Ryan made some fantastic steaks and we enjoyed a quiet and surreal evening in the rainforest.
Day Seven: The next day was one of our shortest travel days. We only went about an hour and half south from the Hoh Rain Forest into Lake Quinault. Along the way we stopped at 4th Beach and hiked down to the water. We also visited Merriman Falls among with some other beautiful little spots around the Quinault Valley. When we were here in October 2019, we stayed at the Lake Quinault Lodge. It was superb and I tried very hard to book that for us again this time, however, I was late to the game and it was all booked up. (It is all booked up for the rest of the season). However, when I was planning out trip, I thought that this night was going to be our 7th night in a row without a shower so I was eager to book us a hotel. I booked us a room at the Rain Forest Resort Village. It has beautiful views of the lake and really great water pressure. Across the street was the Salmon House Restaurant, which was closed for indoor dining at the time but still offered really great meals for take out. We got some salmon and lasagna to-go, set up our camp table and chairs and enjoyed a lovely meal "tailgating style" watching the sunset over the lake.
By this point of the trip we had been gone for a week and it was time to start heading back home. So Ryan "the Rockstar" drove us 7 hours straight down the Washington and Oregon coasts to our next campground Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park in Oregon. We went through Astoria, OR and learned that there is another National Park we did not even know about. Lewis and Clark National Historical Park has now made our list of places we will go. We also drove past Tillamook Creamery, but the line to even get into the parking lot was a nightmare so we added that to our list of places we should go "NOT in the Summer."
Honeyman State Park is right by the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area so our campground was filled with ATVs and Quads as far as the eye can see. It was probably the nosiest park we have even camped (it was also a Friday night in the summer) but we got to have our campfire and smores and enjoyed the sound insultation inside the van overnight.
Day Nine: The next morning, we finished up the Oregon coast. It is still amazingly beautiful every time we drive it. We made our way down to Eureka, CA and slept on the side of the road at the beach. We finished up the trip with a drive through Redwoods National and State Parks and were reminded how luck we are to live in such a beautiful place.
In total, Ryan drove over 2400 miles through a wide variety of terrain. We saw amazing lakes, rivers, coasts and glaciers. The Pacific Northwest is by far one of the most beautiful places in the world and while the secret does seem to be out, I do still highly recommend exploring as much of it as you can. Protip: If you ever want to rent a campervan or any size RV for this journey or any other, check out Outdoorsy and use our referral code to get a good deal.