I was staying somewhere without internet access the last couple of nights. I wrote the rest of this on my swinging bachelor Friday night in Kalaloch Lodge, on the coast.
Congrats if you had the under on three days into the hiking portion of the trip before I broke out that title reference.
Apologies to all the ones of you who've been reading this blog for the delay. At this writing I’m staying in a log cabin without internet access (or a TV-I may go crazy missing the Saturday night Pac-10 games or Texas vs. TCU).
Today (the 7th), I flipped on Saved By the Bell: the College Years while trying to wake up. This of course was the same show as Saved By the Bell, only without the hot chick from Showgirls or that dubious “principal” character who always seemed to be lurking around those high school kids at non-school functions. Instead of that guy, the adult figure was played by ex-Brown and Raider All-Pro defensive tackle Bob Golic, in one of the most bizarre casting decision ever (though, if you’re making a sequel to Saved By the Bell, why not just go full bore crazy?). Besides, I guess that travesty made people forget he was on the field for the Browns during The Drive. Anyway, this was the episode where one of the kids was tempted to do something wrong, but didn’t on account of the adult’s sage advice, all the kids learned a valuable lesson, and Screech was a tool. By the way, how disappointing is it that impossibly beautiful former Miss Louisiana and Miss USA Ali Landry, a nice Breaux Bridge girl for God’s sake, could ever have been married to that noodge Mario Lopez? Doesn’t he do infomercials now, or didn’t he wear a man-tard in Dancing in the Stars?
And now I’m craving crawfish etouffee.
So, where was I?
Today was mostly very clear, with the same sun as yesterday, only we got it in town and at lower elevations as well. Yesterday was all mountains all the time, while today was about old forests, lakes, streams, and waterfalls. After getting breakfast and checking out of the Bates Motel, I headed first to Marymere Falls. Not exactly Niagara Falls, but its an interesting bridal veil style falls of about 90 feet. It was about an hour roundtrip hike (roughly 1.8 miles), and conveniently accessible from the main highway. No flowers, but lots of extremely tall spruce and cedars, along with large ferns, willows, and mosses. Dense canopy, and many small pools. In short, a totally different ecology than yesterday’s alpine forests and meadows.
Then it was on past Lake Crescent to the Sol Duc “resort” and trail. Lake Crescent looks exactly like that lake where Johnny was conveniently “forced” to teach Baby lifts in Dirty Dancing. Speaking of which, what nice Jewish girl planning to go to Mount Holyoke in the fall to study economics of underdeveloped countries wouldn’t have seen that obvious “wet t-shirt” ploy from a mile off? Can’t you imagine the off-camera establishing dialog?
Johnny: [Grunts] I can only teach you lifts in the water, not in our huge dance studio. You need to wear a white shirt too.”
Baby: [Starry-eyed] “Anything for you Johnny.”
OK, back to me. After a 17 mile drive through the same kind of forest leading off the main highway, I arrived at the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort. If anyone’s ever stayed at one of those cabins in New Braunfels on the Guadalupe, then you’ve seen this place. The difference is it smells like sulfur, probably having to do with the “hot springs.” Notably, the signs at the lodge are in both English and some sort of Cyrillic alphabet language (Russian or some eastern European country-we went through this earlier didn’t we?). The pool in back and the several hot tub looking apparatuses (“apparati”?) were filled with extremely large people from the old country (the kind Southwest Airlines charges for two seats). Wondering whether I had perhaps stumbled onto the set of Cocoon, I surmised that Sol Duc Resort probably draws a lot of Russians. The Russians, I understand, are quite keen on mineral baths. The ritual of the sauna and medicinal bath is quite engrained in Russian culture (along with dictators, a flourishing black market, and a nearly comical inability to operate nuclear facilities safely).
Leaving the resort behind, I began the eight mile roundtrip hike to Deer Lake, a mountain lake about three miles past Sol Duc Falls. The falls are much more impressive than Marymere, three separate prongs dropping about 200 feet down a sheer black rock drop to pools below. The Sol Duc river is quite charging, moving rapidly to the Pacific (I know, “thank you, junior park ranger”). The falls are about a mile into the hike. Three miles beyond that lies Deer Lake. The trail there is very rocky, nearly cobblestone-like in some places. Although it is 95% uphill the whole way there, the inclines are pretty manageable, maybe about a 20 % grade. The forest was more dense with the same kind of trees, only taller and often moss-covered. Huge ferns and other leafy ground-cover plants were everywhere. Mushrooms of many varieties were everywhere. Along the way some very small springs sometimes flow onto the trail or along side it. I suspect the water is not drinkable and of course didn’t try, but I wonder how it would taste. Took about 1 ½ hours to get to the lake, which was a smaller version of Lake Crescent. Crystal clear blue water, with an attractive fens, or meadow, at the end where various streams feed the lake. Nearly the entire there was in shadow and was dark; the lake area itself was bathed in brilliant sunshine. So I took about a 20 minute break there, eating my protein bar and watching for animals. OK, this next part is kind of gross. In the ramshackle wood toilet facility was a sign saying not to deposit trash in there because the workers who haul the waste down the mountain have to pull the trash out of there by hand. Now, I’ve had a lot of bad days at work, but the worst day I’ve ever had at the worst job I’ve ever had was like paradise compared to that job description.
A couple of things struck me on this particular hike. First, the silence was overcoming. Its rare to go anywhere these days where there’s absolutely no sounds except for the wind or birds. This and some of the other hikes have been great-no cars, no airplanes, almost no other people yammering along the way, just silence (except when near the waterfalls or rapids). Also, I haven’t seen any trash at all on any of the trails. Can’t imagine that’s because the Park Service is so efficient at cleaning. That has to be an ethic that park visitors have developed.
After finishing the hike around 5 or so, I loaded up on drinks and drove the 1 ½ hours to Kalaloch Lodge, on the western edge of the Park, right on the Pacific. In Forks, I saw an almost fully-restored, extremely rare 1971 Plymouth Barracuda. Idiotically, I forgot to take a picture. As Ferris Bueller would say, it was so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. Shortly before arriving, the crystal clear day turned into dense fog, literally in about a one minute span. It was pretty eerie, because at that moment I was driving through a field of gray tree stumps, thereby producing my own Land of the Lost moment. Had an extremely mediocre dinner, and am now typing this. Staying in a small log cabin that could fit about four people. Its really cold and wet outside, but somehow I have managed, despite myself, to start a fire in the wood-burning stove without the benefit of a gas flame, armed only with matches, newspaper, and kindling wood. So I think I’ll stop here and enjoy the fire before it burns down the cabin.
Tomorrow-Hoh Rain Forest and Hall of Mosses.
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