Went Places

Went places, looked at things, then sat a long time "...watching the ships roll in, then I watch them roll away again..."

First drove up the Elwha River to the end of the road. Trail goes on from there to Olympic Hot Springs. Many cars parked at the trailhead, people setting forth and traipsing back down, I'm guessing mostly local people, out for a weekend hot soak in the rain. Trail book promises an overview of the Elwha Canyon from Observation Point, but actually all you could see was Lake Mills behind the dam. Well perhaps if a cloud weren't sitting and raining upcanyon there might have been a bit of view up to the mountains, but I actually don't think so.

Then went back down again to look for where the Lyre River serves as the outflow of Lake Crescent. The geographers say that Lake Crescent was part of the Elwha drainage, as its neighbor lake, Lake Sutherland, still is, until a gigantic landslide from Storm King Mountain blocked the way in fairly recent geologic time. The valley filled with water until it found a place to spill over and make its way directly to the Strait: the Lyre. Small and shallow opening for such a large lake, the story must have a lot more in it (and I forgot to take a picture). Then I hunted for the mouth of the Lyre, but it turns out that all the accesses to the Strait along that stretch of the coast are private resorts and campgrounds.

After four different attempts to reach salt water somewhere I could sit and read, I ended up in the day use parking at Salt Creek County Park, where in fact it is easy to watch ships steaming in and out of Puget Sound via the Strait. Read my book. Watched ships. The only one close enough and with writing on it big enough to read by binoculars was the Norwegian Pearl, an enormous cruise ship. She cruised past eastbound, then far away and tiny hung a left and docked at Ogden Point in Victoria. Her website said she would be in port in Victoria only six hours, then overnight would go down to Seattle and the end of the cruise. (Sailwx at the moment still shows her position off Cape Flattery early yesterday afternoon.)

PS. Regarding the tankers, no, Port Angeles is not an oil port. But it has a deepwater repair facility, is the pilot station for picking up/dropping off Puget Sound pilots, and sometimes is simply a place tankers anchor to wait for their berth to open up at the oil ports in Puget Sound.

Lake Mills & Glines Canyon Dam from Observation Point. No symbolism intended, the rainbow just happened to be there...