Olympic NP: Backpacking the Southern Coast, Part II (a.k.a. In Which It Hits the Fan)

Have you ever had the feeling? The one that niggles at the back of your mind and warns you that things are too good to be true? That every event in life is connected and the butterfly effect isn’t just some bad Ashton Kutcher movie?

Suffice it to say that day two of our Olympic coast backpacking trek lives on in our collective memory with the kind of infamy usually reserved for do you remember the time Kid B pooped in his car seat and we had no wipes? type incidents.

So bad. And I’m only partially referring to the coast hike.

When last we left off, our unsuspecting family had fallen hard for the rugged coast, excited to set up camp along Third Beach. Freshly showered, spirits high, we hardly gave a second thought to the creek crossing next to our campsite. It was high tide, and getting wet just went part and parcel with the territory. For the record, let me just say: for a bunch of Hawaii folk who practically live at the beach all summer, I will never, for the love of all that’s holy, understand why it didn’t occur to us to remove our shoes before crossing the creek, but it didn’t.

(Cue Butterfly Effect theme music)

The cursed creek…it looks so innocuous, doesn’t it?

And so we crossed the creek, shoes, pants, and all. Sure, our wool socks and waterproof shoes were completely soaked, but no matter. We would leave them outside to dry overnight. And true, our perfect ocean-view campsite was marred by wads of used toilet paper strewn across the sand (so gross!), but so what? We were hiking to Toleak Point tomorrow, a destination Ranger Eddie had assured us was nothing short of phenomenal: bald eagles taking flight from the sand by the dozen, otters and seals playing just beyond the shore, tidepools teeming with spiny sea stars and giant green anemones–the likes of which could be found nowhere else on earth. We dined al fresco along driftwood logs just steps away from the roaring ocean, warming ourselves beside the crackling fire. Yes, the blanket of starless gray above seemed ominous, but our happy stint at Third Beach left us convinced it was more bogeyman than real. All bark, no bite.

Home for the night, Third Beach, Olympic NP

Fastening that rain fly, juuuust in case…..

Campfire just past our tent on the beach

This was the view from our tent. It was amazing!

Waking up to this view was incredible

Cooking dinner, Third Beach

Those bear canisters were just the right height for makeshift chairs!

Dinner on a driftwood log–it doesn’t get much better than this

You see where this is going, don’t you?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Lord almighty, please don’t let her wax poetic about the rain again. It’s the Pacific Northwest. It rains a lot. We get it. But indulge me for a second, please, because this was truly Next-Level Stuff. See, we awoke to the gentlest of drizzles. Just a whisper of spray, barely even noticeable. Certainly not enough to deter us from venturing to the creek to refill water. Our shoes and socks were still uncomfortably damp, but my brother and his partner were arriving soon, and we needed water for oatmeal. We’d just have to dry our footwear fireside while we prepared breakfast, we figured.

Morning low tide, the calm before the storm (literally!)

Ignorance is bliss…if we only knew what was about to come

 But by the time we’d crossed the driftwood logjam en route to the creek, the drizzle had progressed to a steady trickle–with breakfast still to prepare and no awning to prepare it under. The beach didn’t offer much in the way of natural shelter, but it wasn’t cold (yet!), just windy, and surely, hot oatmeal and a blazing fire would warm our wet feet right up, right? Only, starting a fire in the rain proved impossible, or at least, beyond our skill set. We huddled around the simmering oatmeal while rain streamed down our already-damp pants and socks.

And then the wind picked up, and the kids abandoned ship to take cover in our heretofore warm and dry tent. Unbeknownst to us, they shed their wet clothes in favor of dry sleep clothes, leaving puddles of water and sodden long underwear strewn about the tent. Meanwhile, the husband and I braved the elements, hoping to warm our bodies with food. Rain streamed down our faces in earnest; each bite of oatmeal was accompanied by a mouthful of rainwater and sand, courtesy of the whipping winds. We began to shiver, and I remembered this quote I’d read once about backpacking, something to the effect of “there’s always some degree of misery to every backpacking trip, but it’s the misery that makes the highs all the more glorious.”

I was pretty sure we were due some serious glory.

As if on cue, we glanced up to see my brother and his partner walking toward us. They’d made the three and a half hour drive from Seattle at dawn to backpack to Toleak with us! In true Seattle-ite form, they arrived clad only in T-shirts, shorts, and rain jackets, unfazed by the heavy downpour. The kids ran out of the tent to hug them. With such a happy reunion, the rain didn’t seem nearly as miserable anymore. The turn in weather, however, prompted concerns over trail conditions (which included muddy rope climbs/descents and steep, broken ladders), and we voted to dayhike to Toleak instead of backpacking there, returning by afternoon to camp again on Third Beach. The guys pitched their tent next to ours in the rain, an almost cheerful affair now that we were all together. And then the sky split open and the ensuing deluge rendered the shoreline nearly invisible.

Even with all the rain, she was so thrilled to find these smooth stones

Happy find, Olympic NP

We made a beeline for our tent, the first in a series of increasingly Bad Decisions. In our haste, we’d plopped ourselves onto the water puddles and wet clothes left inside the tent. Which wasn’t such a big deal for the husband and I, who were already wet, but a little more dire for the kids and the guys, whose only dry change of clothes was now as soaked as ours. It was about this time that the creek-crossing incident began to haunt us. Our warm and dry tent was no longer warm nor dry, and it wasn’t long before cold entered the scene. Our phones indicated a temperature of 40 degrees with no chance of sun until noon the next day. Wet? Check. Cold? Check. Dry clothes? None. Chance of sun? Zero, nada, none.

So naturally, we decided to press on. With only four days of vacation left, we wouldn’t be able to try for Toleak another day. Besides, my brother and his partner had driven all the way here for this. It was just rain. We’d be all right. Increasingly bad decisions, remember?

Thing is, we’d spent so much time huddling in our tent that we’d missed low tide. The shoreline portions of the trail were no longer viable, forcing us to take the muddy headlands almost exclusively. With ladders and ropes involved, we decided it was best that the kids not shoulder a backpack load. The guys didn’t have daypacks and wanted their hands free as well, so they decided to leave their packs (and water bottles) back at camp. Which is how the seven of us set out for Toleak with a grand total of three liters of water. With no rain pants. Sopping wet socks. In 40 degree weather. With a crap-ton of rain.

Is it sick to say that the trail was actually really fun? That the hanging wooden ladders with missing rungs and rope-assisted muddy climbs were kind of a blast? We were less fond of the ankle-deep rainforest mud bog that seemed to go on for miles. We couldn’t be sure of the distance though, what with two topo maps between us, both completely useless. My brother’s partner’s map was an unreadable, soggy mess in his pocket, and mine was equally unreadable, folded up in a Ziploc bag. All I know is that mud-slogging is sweaty, thirst-inducing business, and it was maybe two miles in before we found ourselves down to our last half liter of water. With our water filter back at camp. And two miles left to Toleak.

This rope section was steeper and muddier than it appears

En route to Giant’s Graveyard

Navigating the mud, Olympic NP

Headland trail marker and evidence of yet another Very Bad Decision: abandoning our trekking poles (!!)

What may possibly be the worst pic ever taken from the headland trail. Photos weren’t really at the top of my mind at the moment, funny enough. 😉

Okay, I lied: this is the worst pic ever. Storm blowing in…

It was then, somewhere between Giant’s Graveyard and Strawberry Point, that we got lashed by yet another torrent from the sky. With rain sheeting in from all directions, we could barely open our eyes. And here is where we finally, FINALLY, started making smart decisions. Teeth chattering, our youngest’s lips were downright blue. Even my brother, who hadn’t batted an eye when he arrived now only half-joked to me, “I think I might have hypothermia.” I laughed, and he leaned in, shivering. “I’m kind of not kidding,” he said.

It makes me sad (now) to see beautiful pictures of Toleak online, but at the moment, none of that mattered. We were freezing and getting wetter by the minute. In a unanimous ten-second decision, we voted to book it two miles back to Third Beach. Along the way, several of us slipped and fell in the mud. When we got back to camp, everyone piled into the tent–mud, rain, and all. In a second unanimous decision, we voted to leave–stat! Easier said than done, what with frozen fingers and rain pelting us as we made haste to pack. We trekked another mile and a half to the car, teeth chattering and miserably cold. No spinning the truth here–there absolutely were tears of misery for our youngest on the way back. The older two were sullen and quiet. It was the lowest point we’ve experienced on any vacation. As a parent, I’d made some pretty crappy decisions that brought us here, and the hike back gave me plenty of time to reflect on that guilt.

When we finally got back to the trailhead, our cramped little Lancer rental was as beautiful a sight as I’ve ever seen. With a brief, “Meet you at the Wilderness Information Center!” we piled in and blasted the heater. We stripped off our socks and shoes, unwilling to brave the rain even a second longer to retrieve dry clothes from the trunk. It was an hour’s drive back to the WIC, one filled with profuse apologies, relieved laughter, and gratitude that we hadn’t gotten into serious trouble in spite of my bad decisions. We were still shivering (though much less so) by the time we returned our bear canisters, and thankfully, Port Angeles was overcast but not raining, so we all changed into dry clothes. Bliss!

This pic is so blurry, but I love it–partly because it’s one of the only photos I have of that day, but also because it captures a moment of humor in the middle of all the misery. We couldn’t stop laughing when my brother’s partner held his camera up and said, “Cheese!” 

Without a campsite for the night, we had some decisions to make. This time, I listened to reason (i.e. the kids) when they said they didn’t want to camp that night. I listened to my brother, who gave a big thumbs-down when we arrived at the only motel with available rooms in Port Angeles, only to find it resembled Bates Motel, complete with chain-smoking sketchy characters out front. And even though I really, really wanted to save the Dungeness Spit camp reservation we’d booked for the following night, I listened to the inner voice that said no campsite, no matter how beautiful or coveted, was worth sacrificing safety or happiness.

Instead, warm and happy, we drove three hours back to Seattle and feasted on carne asada enchiladas, chips, and fresh pico de gallo. Hot showers and quilted comforters awaited us at my brother’s home. Sometimes I think back to that afternoon and wonder what might’ve happened had we pressed on to Toleak. It might’ve turned out amazing, who knows? But regret was the last thing on my mind as I drifted to sleep that night, grateful for a warm, dry bed and safe, happy kids. Six miles and one very muddy trail wiser, I knew for certain that the bird in my hand was worth worlds more than two in the Toleak bush.

Coming soon: Seattle and Bainbridge Island; World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument