Olympic National Hot Springs Search

We found that in order to get to Olympic national park we had to get there one of two ways: Drive the van onto a ferry and float it across the Puget Sound (the body of water separating Seattle from Olympic National Park) or drive south about an hour and then back north another hour to circumvent the water.  We chose the latter.   We started south out of Seattle and stopped along the way to restock water, get some coffee, gas, and some ice for the cooler.  It was a rainy day in the park that morning so as we approached the mountains we couldn’t see the tops because they were covered in clouds.  That was unfortunate, but the forest around the whole park was very green and thick and beautiful.  Because it rains so much in this area, the west side of the park is mostly all official “rain forest” as opposed to the normal deciduous, or evergreen forests I am used to.  It was very interesting, moss covered just about everything and anywhere a plant could grow, they did.  It was mid afternoon by the time we reached the coast along route 101 and we stopped to view the pacific ocean and the signature pacific coast rocks jutting a hundred or two feet out of the water.  These rocks weren’t as prevalent here as they are along Oregon’s coast.  By this time the rain had cleared up and it was sunny but on the coast we were too far away from Olympic mountain to see its peak (lame).  In the far distance of the ocean, we could see a light house and as we basked in the afternoon sun we saw a “Bald-headed Eagle” –Jarrett, aka Bald Eagle, fly quickly overhead.  First Bald Eagle I ever saw flying outside in its natural habitat.

 

We secured Melissa’s new black market hula hoops to the back of the van and headed to our camping destination for the night (Quinault Rain Forest).  After about 15 miles on a small one lane stone road leading deep into the woods, we thought we were lost.  It was at about this time that we had our first bear sighting!  I, Jarrett, spotted a bear approximately one second before Lisa did and yelled, “STOP” to Melissa who was driving.  What appeared to be a large stump in an open field was actually a black bear.  It was about a half of a football field away and seemed to be disturbed at our presence because it started meandering away into the forest every once in a while giving us a direct stare and then continuing on behind some large brush in the forest.  It was awesome.  We drove off to let the bear do it’s wilderness thang and came to a crossroads where we saw a signage telling us we were d-minus (distance) two miles from camp (phew).  On these last two miles we saw some of these horse/deer things, which we called dorses and we stopped so we could make animal noises at them (lol).  Most of them ran away, but one of the brave souls started to approach the van a bit and would bark noises back at us in response to our noises while his friends watched from afar.   After about 10 more minutes of this, we continued on to the campsite and setup camp in this deep-woods jungle-like rain forest (no monkeys unfortunately though).  We made some dinner on the campfire and conked out.

The next day we were headed for Mt. Saint Helen (the mountain whose top was blown off in a volcanic eruption in May of 1980).  When we got close (approx. 20 miles away) we realized we probably needed gas (minor detail Meliss overlooked) and so we had to backtrack 30 minutes (round trip 1 hour) to get gas.  We arrived at the main interpretive center where they told the story of the volcanic eruption, however, since we backtracked, we only had 15 minutes to learn about the event. This was enough time to get the gist of it, but you could spend about 2 hours in this place reading all the exhibits.  We got some pictures with the mountain and then got kicked out.  No time for hiking, at this point, we had to find some place to park the van for the night.  On the way down from the interpretive center, which was at about 3000ft in elevation, I pulled my bike off the van and cruised down behind the van most of the way.  This was exciting; I reached about 30 MPH at my fastest.  Luckily, we found this nice state park campground just outside Mt St. Helen National Monument where we could have a fire and grab showers. 

We woke up and went to the town of Castle Rock, WA where we picked up some groceries and did some laundry, the next main destination was the Columbia River Gorge along the boarder of WA and OR. Supposedly, there are natural primitive hot springs to take dips in around the Columbia River Gorge.  We followed the directions of the hot springs book that we purchased in Seattle to find the spring along the Wind River.  This book was published in 2005, so its safe to assume that a handful of things changed since the publishing of the book.  We learned this at the first spring we attempted to visit in Olympic National Park, which was closed due to dam construction.   When we got to the trailhead of the spring, it was labeled with signage denoting many warnings that trespassers will be prosecuted and that the area is under new management.  Second hot spring was a bust too.  We left there and followed the directions to the next potential hot spring nearby.  This turned out to be a hike, not a hot spring location…it wasn’t very clear in the book.  By this time we had spent so much time in the van that we just decided to do the hike to stretch our legs anyway.  It felt great to get on our feet hiking again.  To our surprise, this hike led to an amazingly large 150-200 foot waterfall.  The pictures say it all.

It was about 6pm when we got back to the van and we still wanted to find some hot springs, however, the closest ones were Oregon, along its cascade mountain range about 2 hours away (more driving ugh).  We need a day or two of R&R.  We settled down at a campground as close as we could get to the nearby hot springs location (called Bagby Hot Springs) before it got too dark.  This campground was very quiet and it was kind of creepy; we made it through the night though. 

The next day we woke up excited for the day we would lounge in some primitive hot springs pools at last.  We got on the road by 8:30am and quickly got lost in Mt. Hood National Forest (we had no cell service, a GPS without a working charger, and a map that wasn’t detailed enough).  As a result we spent 3 hours finding a location that should have taken us 1 hour (shucks deluxe).  It was okay though, we kept our cool and when we finally found the hot springs location we were perked up and were ready to hike. Bagby is a 3 mile round trip hike to a location where a club of local people built outdoor sauna like structures that diverted the hot spring water into these large hollowed out trees.  The water came out of the ground clean, clear, and 137 degrees Fahrenheit.  There was a cold water fill station where you could take buckets to cool down your hot tree-tub water.   It was a very unique and fun experience.

From here, we left around 2pm today and now we are headed down to Crater Lake National Park in southern OR.  As I finish this post we are in Bend, OR about 2 hours away from Crater Lake.  From there, we will go to Medford, OR  where I went to high school in 9^th grade and then to the Redwood National Park on the northern coast of CA.

Will update again soon.  Vanderstinks out -Jarrett