Saturday, March 06, 2010

Staircase Hike in Olympic National Park

Hello,
Today we finally had a nice sunny (almost warm) day so I went hiking with some friends.

Hiking along the "Staircase" trail, I followed the Skokomish river, crossing it several times as the river twisted and turned its way up through the mountains and through the old-growth forest within.

Many waterfalls fed into the river and I had a nice view of Mount Lincoln.

Here are some pics and one video:

Mount Washington.  I could only see the summit as I looked way up from the river, through the tree tops, to  the mountain.  The river runs in and out around the bottom of such mountains.


Here is the Skokomish River, or at least one small portion of the river. 
Many other parts of the river were running fast and had waterfalls.


This is a fast running tributary that we crossed on a foot log
 (single log used as a bridge) spanning this gorge high above the water.


One of my favorite waterfalls of the hike.

One BIG cedar tree! There were also many others
in this ancient, old growth forest  Oh.. and just to
provide prospective, that's me paying my respects to tree.

Okay, I had to have my picture taken again,
this time in front of a waterfall :-).

This is the nice picture of that waterfall.

Waterfalls Video  - I spliced together videos I shot of all of the waterfalls
in the pictures above. It's a pretty short video, but you can hear the
waterfalls and experience the fast moving, powerful water.


I am sure to discover a Japanese poem that complements this hiking experience and, when I do, I will blog it to http:\\haigaobsession.blogspot.com.

3 comments:

  1. I liked your pictures of the mountains, the river. Make up your own poem to describe your adventure, Just make it universal.

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  2. I looked at your photos again and blew them to full size. They are some of the best of nature rhat I have seen. It must be very satisfying and relaxing. Enter them in the next photo contest. That is a trip I would like to take in the Spring.
    henry

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  3. I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures. I had forgotten to mention that this was a 17 mile (27 km) roundtrip hike! I feel good today - hiking seems to become easier.

    You have challenged me to write my own poem to capture Saturday's wandering. Of course this will be difficult since I have been reading only poetry of acknowledged masters and, by default, theirs is the standard I would unrealistically measure myself with.

    I have to admit that during the hike I became preoccupied with a desire to create a short verse to further depict its sights, sounds, and maybe the satisfaction of experiencing them.

    Poetry integrated with mountaineering stories and pictures has become my new goal for sharing more enriched, and possibly more memorable backcountry experiences; certainly this would be a step increase toward more ceative expression.

    Its bound to take a little time to get it right :-).

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