Day 2 in the Olympic National Park: took possibly the ugliest rental car ever (see pic above) up to Hurricane Ridge for a hike in the mountains...
Lots of deer in this park...
We hiked up Elk Mountain (6,773 feet).... The views were spectacular. It is just you, the wind, the occasional call of a bird... It makes you feel so very wee...
See? Wee...
Gabe notes that we can see both Mt. Rainier and Mt. Baker in the distance. We were extremely lucky to have a clear day for the hike. Actually, we both got a bit of a sun burn - pretty good work for a trip to the Pacific NW :)
Mount Olympus... It was very shortly after this that I discovered... that I have a brutal fear of heights.
No. Seriously.
This became apparent as we began a length of exposed ridge hiking down the face of Elk Mountain. "I'M GOING TO DIE! EEEEEE!!!!"
I don't know how, but somehow, Gabe managed to coax me, clinging to the side of the mountain, across the exposed face to a copse of pine trees where I huddled in a fetal position until I was good.
It was then that we also discovered.... that we had left our trail map in the car. :| There was a short, hungry debate (our lunches were also left behind in the car) about whether to push on or double back and retrace our steps. It is very uncomfortable to find out that you are afraid of heights and do not know where you are, while you are on the side of a 6,773 foot mountain. In the end, I lived. Which is good. But I looked like this for some time afterward (ok, until I got a beer in the nearest town):
6 comments:
Doesn't gabe's blackberry have a topo gps map app he could use? Guess not. Should have got an iPhone ;)
Above the clouds is very, very, very high. So too must've been the feeling incurred from the elevation :|
There's an app with USGS topos, but you have to pay some money to get any worthwhile detail and they're many gigabytes worth of data.
I'll just add: *I* knew where we were at all times. :P
And I'LL just add... yes, Gabriel DID know where we were at all times... but we had no idea where we were going... or how to get there.... or where those gosh darn sammiches were...
Yeah, ok, that's true...
What an amazing adventure. i really appreciate the pictures, I'm vicariously living through you right now.
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