When we woke up this morning we could hear the sound of a fog horn in the distance. Not a good sign. Thankfully it was just on the coast. Inland it was the usual sunny and high of 19C.
Today we went to two more parts of the National Park. The Storm King area is right next to Lake Crescent and Storm King Mountain. We first did a short hike along the lake shore and back through some tall trees.
This huge cedar tree had been completely burned out in the center but was still very much alive.
Next we did a 2 mile return hike to Marymere Falls. Most of this trail was flat which was very nice but weird for us as we have a hard time remembering the last flat trail we have done.
Coming from a creek only a few feet wide the falls were quite pretty for so little water.
Another hike up Storm King mountain was 4 miles and 2000 foot vertical. We declined.
After lunch we went to the Sol Duc area. The name comes from the Quiliete Indian name for “sparkling waters”. So naturally we did another easy 2 mile return hike up the Sol Duc River to Sol Duc Falls.
We had to do a bit of rock hopping here.
The river does a bit of a left turn, over the falls and into a narrow ravine only about 10 feet across.
Great views from the bridge. Lots of spray but we only got a bit wet.
After all the hiking we have done in the last few days we rewarded ourselves with a trip to the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort.
There are 3 pools fed from a natural hot spring. One was a 106F and seemed to have mostly Japanese tourists in it. I guess they can take the heat. The largest and the one we used was at 104F. The shallow kiddie pool was at 99F. They also had a large regular water pool at 80F for cooling down. The smell of sulphur was pervasive but not overwhelming.
After the pool it was hard to keep awake for the 45 minute drive back home.
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