Elevation Gain: Approximately 2000 ft.
Time: 10:45 pm - 4:15 pm
Weather: Gray, cloudy, rainy, and cool.
What was to be a school outdoor club hike devolved into a walk in the woods with the same senior who went on beach hike with me. As I said in the beach hike blog entry, the senior was on that hike to serve as an intern in the school's outdoor education program. While the beach hike took a lot of work, the internship must be at least 60 hours of work, with at least 40 being during the last 3 weeks of school. He still has hours to earn, so I was trying to help take him hiking.
Crazy busy weekend at school. Friday, the entire high school was out doing different community service projects in the morning. I was with kids building trails in the back wooded area that the school owns. That afternoon, after the bar-b-que picnic lunch, I played with some colleagues in the student dodge-ball tournament. After this was over, I had enough time to run home and pack for the all night walk and bike-a-thon at the school. I was going to stay up, as late as I could, and then take three kids on a hike with me the next day.
I got about two and a half solid hours of sleep, when I was woken up at 5:30 am. One of the other 4 adults was waking me up to be with the kids while he got donuts. An hour and a half later, I was leaving campus to go to the grocery store, buy my food, and wait for the kids. I already knew we were down to two because one of the three was at the lock-in with me, and he was too tired to go hiking. By the time I got to the grocery store, our meeting place, the other kids were there. It was raining slightly. An annoyance only because the forecast the night before was for late evening showers on Saturday. I ran in bought food, stopped at Starbucks, ran into my boss, chatted about the lock-in, and went back to the car. When I got back, one of the kids was saying she no longer wanted to go. She took her stuff and went home. It was at this moment I realized I forgot my digital camera. So, it's here where the hike story begins:
This senior and I hit the road at 7:45 am with the Duckabush Trail Trailhead as our final destination. Google maps said 2 hours. We had no trouble, except the last 2.6 miles. We saw a sign saying Duckabush trailhead 2.6 miles ahead. We went on, and came to a three way fork. I remembered reading about forest road 2510, so I followed that. And I was on this road for so much longer than 2.6 miles. I don't know why but I didn't even look at the odometer. Instead, we took a 25 minute detour up the forest road before turning around and getting to the trailhead at least 45 minutes later than we could have.
When we finally did get to the trailhead, it was packed. We were able to make a spot near the end, and I got geared up and we hit the trail at 10:45 am. The trail starts in the Olympic National forest and according to the trail signs hits the National Park boundary 6.4 miles in. My senior hiking buddy needed to be back relatively early, so we were determined to get there quickly.
The hike had a good amount of elevation gain, but I was feeling pretty good. The kid, of course, is a ridiculously strong hiker, remember the 25 pounds of trash he hauled off the beach, while still going faster than me. We cruised up switchbacks, past many people with full packs looking to overnight. We ended up walking with no breaks the entire way to the National Park sign. It took us a little less than 2 hours and 30 minutes. According to my cell phone GPS Track, this point was about 8 miles in. We took about 30 minutes to snack and rehydrate. We were in a wide open area, and by the end of the break, the rain was a little more constant, and we were getting cold. We began our walk about around 1:50 pm.
At this point, my feet were tired and sore. On my last hike, among the multitude of onions, one I forgot to blog about was a busted boot at the very beginning of last week's hike. I guess 37 weeks in a row will put some wear and tear on gear. I was hiking in a new pair of hiking boots. I wore them Thursday night, and almost all day and night Friday. After three hours of hiking on Saturday, my feet were tired of being in them. The boots are awesome, I just need to keep breaking them in.
I needed a water break on the way back up, but after only about 10 minutes, we were walking again. We did not slow down much, and we were back at the car by 4:15 pm.
Orchid: Great co-hiker.
Onion: Sore feet.
Picture:
Google Map
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