We weren't even 3-miles down the road when we saw two young elk bucks on the side of the road. I mentioned to them if they were looking for their females friends, there were four beauties nearby in the A Loop of the campground.
When we reached the town of Forks we once again went into the Thrifty Mart/Ace Hardware story to purchase a few grocery items and then it was a few blocks further into town to the Post Office.
We had our mail forwarded to us for only the second time since we left Florida at the end of January. This time we needed our new credit cards sent to us so we can update the expiration date and get our cellphone bill paid automatically next month.
That's the last credit card that expires this year, so we may not need to forward our mail again for the whole year.
After a relatively short 70-mile travel day we arrived at the Sol Duc Campground where we have reserved what's listed as a 35' site. As you can see in the following photos there's not a straight 35' section anywhere on the site.
We failed twice to back it into the site and place it where you see it in the first photo, so we then pulled it in forward and had to bend it around that tree you see off to the left.
FYI - Airstreams might be made out of aluminum, but they don't bend!
The Sol Duc Trail is a 1.6-mile Out & Back hike to the 3-tiered Sol Duc Falls.
We started at 7:00AM because yesterday around 1:00PM, after we unhooked from THE POD, we checked out the parking lot and it was full. We wanted to avoid that situation and figured 7:00AM should be early enough.
When we arrived in the parking lot there were only a handful of parking spots taken. We arrived at the same time that a family from Atlanta did and had a nice conversation in the parking lot before hitting the trail.
SOL DUC FALLS TRAIL
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The Atlanta Family were faster (younger) hikers than we were, so they quickly left us behind.
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Along the trail we once again spotted some Bigleaf Maples.
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The leaves dwarf everything else around it.
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Here's Tricia giving you some perspective about the size of the leaves.
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These Western Bunchberry plants were also very prevalent along the trail.
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Most of the trail was upon a very well worn path and made it easy not to get lost in the woods.
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There was no getting your feet wet along this trail, several bridges made that possible.
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It's now 7:35AM and the sun is finally coming through the upper branches of the trees.
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Just before reaching the falls there was a hiker shelter along the trail.
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It's closed, but looks to be in pretty good shape, so it must be used in the winter time.
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We hung out at the waterfall for a good 30-minutes and were rewarded with a rainbow.
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It's 8:30AM and the Western Swordfern is starting to wake up and unravel.
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I spotted this guy on the trail when I almost skewered him with my hiking stick.This is not a Licorice Slug, it's a dark colored Banana Slug.
We have one more big thing reserved for later today at 6:00PM. Remember, the full name of this place is the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort and Campground.
Turns out that our $19 1-1/2 hour session in the hot springs was plenty of time. We voluntarily left after just more than an hour, we'd had enough tub time by then.
Our first stop is the Salmon Cascades. It's "the place to be" in September and October when the coho salmon are returning to their birthplace upriver to spawn and then die.
Here in June it's still a nice short walk to see the cascades in action.
SALMON CASCADES
ON THE SOL DUC RIVER
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I can't imagine the amount of energy it takes to swim up these cascades when you're a salmon.
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These two cascades here are at least 18" high and has the fastest moving water.
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We are about 4-miles from the mouth of the river at this point.I'm not sure what obstacles they've had to overcome up until this point.
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These calm waters will be full of salmon come September.
Our second stop was the Ancient Groves Trail. It's a .6-mile loop trail in an old growth spruce forest. It's one of the two recommended hikes that the National Park brochure has for this area, the Sol Duc Falls Trail we did yesterday is the other hike.
ANCIENT GROVES TRAIL
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I'm speaking with someone we met in the parking lot. She's here on a solo trip from Maryland.
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In addition to the ancient trees there are plenty of ferns on the forest floor.
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This is literally a walk in the woods.
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Most of the forest floor here is covered in moss.
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Look how the trees have curved at the bottom to reach straight up to the sunlight.
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It's amazing how the trees adapt to their surroundings.
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The trail soon followed a narrow ridge high above the Sol Duc River.
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At some points the trail was barely 2-feet wide.
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It was along this portion of the trail we walked passed a wall full of these tiny flowers.
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We've identified this as Twinflower using our phone app.
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Look how long and straight that downed tree is.
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This little spruce sampling is begining life from atop it's nurse log.
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If it survives it's first 500-years it could grow up to look like these.
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The hike is just about over, time to head back to THE POD for some lunch.
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