Olympic Nationa Park &l Forest, WA

Thursday 8/23/2012

 

I left you in my last blog at the Lake Quinault Lodge. Just up the street from the lodge is a museum. We stopped for a quick look around, before we moved on.



We were looking for the "World's Largest Spruce Tree", when we entered into the Cotton Creek Campground. This campground was very small and definitely not big enough for motor homes our size.

If you have a tent or small RV, there are some sites with great Lake Quinault views.



We continued east and saw the sign for the giant tree we were looking for.

There was a very short trail to the tree.

Before you cross the foot bridge you can get a picture of the entire tree.

This is one of the Quinault Valley's six champion trees. The other giants of the valley are the world's largest Western Red Cedar,  and Mountain Hemlock. The other two giants in the valley are the United States largest Yellow Cedar and the Western Hemlock. If you have time, you can take trails to all of these giant trees.

This largest Sitka Spruce in the world is 55 feet and 7 inches in circumference, and 191 feet tall.

View of Lake Quinault furter east on South Shore Rd. Loop Drive.

We continued east to drive around Lake Quinault.

The drive around the lake goes quite a distance east beyond the lake, before it takes you to the north side of the lake.

The road follows the  Quinault River and we leave the Olympic National Park, into the Quinault Lake National Forest.

When you enter into the National Forest, you know you are in the wilderness.

We finally cross the river, and head back west on the North Shore Rd.

We see a sign that tells us that if you are in a RV, it is time to turn around and go back to the South Shore Rd.

As we get closer to the lake, we enter back into Olympic National Park.

Olympic National Park consist of 1,400 square miles. In 1995 over 95% of the land was designated as wilderness.

We saw very few cars while we did our drive around the lake.

We followed the river again for a while.

Then we entered a very narrow road. This is definitely not a road for an RV. later the road became very windy and climbed some steep hills on the edge of a cliff.

The forest got more dense with broken moss covered branch stubs.

 

We also went through a deciduous tree area.



It was very quiet and beautiful in the park.

Another reason you do not want to drive a RV on the North Shore Rd. This was a one lane very tight bridge.

It crossed the now dry creek that flows to the river.

We arrived on the north side of the Quinault Lake.

We found a pit stop that had restrooms and a short trail to the lakes edge. While Joe used the restroom, I noted cougars were in the area,

as well as bears.

We took the trail to get a view of the north shore of Lake Quinault.

This side of the lake was much calmer.

After a little bit longer drive we end our North Shore Rd. Loop Drive and got back on Hwy. 101 going south toward home.

We drove to the town of Humptulips just off of Hwy. 101, then turned SW on Kirkpatrick Rd. toward Copalis Crossing. Joe wanted to check out this road, as we were thinking this would be the fastest route to our next neighborhood.

As we were going through Copalis Crossing, I spotted Voss Acres.

I am always looking for local produce, so I had Joe turn around and return to Voss Acres.

Steve Voss bought this land and the buildings on it, that use to house an old Railroad Depot and Post Office in the late 1800's.

With a lot of hard work he built a garden, chicken coop and a place for pigs and ducks on a 6000 square foot piece of land. His wife Sharron went out to the garden to pick a fresh head of cabbage for me.

Nothing like a very fresh head of cabbage for dinner!

Steve turned the old Railroad Depot/ Post Office into their home. Voss Acres is open 7 days a week, and a must stopping place if you are looking for good looking fresh local produce.

From Copalis Crossing, we took a road to Ocean City which is just north of Ocean Shores. Ocean Breeze Resort, the resort we were camped at, is located between these two towns.



On Hwy. 109 south of Ocean City, Joe spotted theses two surfer Sasquatch/Big Foots. The Northwest has had the most sightings of Sasquatch than any other place in the United States. ( While in this area I watch a show about Sasquatch sightings).

It was yet just another 119 mile day!