Hey guys! I am writing about my fall break when my family and I went to Olympic National Park in Washington State of the Pacific Northwest. This post is about Mt. Storm King, our very first hike in Olympic National Park. I hope you enjoy it!
The hike up Mt. Storm King is steep, strenuous, and scary, but when you finish, you feel very accomplished.
The trailhead is near Lake Crescent Lodge. You start on the Marymere Falls Trail that was thankfully flat, but once you get to the beginning of Mt. Storm King Trail, the flat ends. For the next 2.5 miles, you just go uphill and uphill some more. Seriously, straight up. a.k.a, a butt-burner. For me, going uphill was not the worst part; it was the combination of the length and elevation change that got me.
On the way up, there are 5 nice lookouts. We stopped at all of them except for one of them because it was crowded. At the first one accessed a quick spur trail, you can see the valley, but not the lake. We spent the most time there because it’s beautiful and difficult to access. Unfortunately, Dad dropped the camera lens cap and it rolled down the hill, but he managed to get it back.
At the next lookout, you can finally see Lake Crescent for the first time on the hike. We didn’t hang around because of all the people there. Plus, our friend, Miss Shanna, told us the one right after it is even nicer. She was right. The view is even better from this lookout, you can see how far down the drop to the lake is. Scary. It made my belly feel wobbly. Yelly Belly was wobbly. So Wobbly Belly?
After about half a mile, we reached the end of the maintained trail. After the ‘End of Maintained Trail’ sign, it’s just steep and full of talas. Before the sign, the trail was just steep. Once we got to the sign, we took a snack break. As we ate, a bunch of birds (we call them beggy birds) surrounded us and tried to eat our snacks. Of course, we didn’t give the birds any food since human food is bad for them.
Once we finished our snacks, we continued to ropes placed by hikers before us. They were very helpful in getting us up the trail, but a little scary. The first rope was tied to a tree and dangled over a super steep part of the trail with lots of talas. Miss Shanna was first on rope since she’s done the trail before, then Mom, then me, and finally, Dad. We continued up ALL the ropes (I think there were about 10 maybe?) and finally got to the end of the ropes. Unfortunately, the scariness didn’t end at the ropes. We still had to climb a steep, steep, STEEP ridge. Once we got to the very top, it was TERRIFYING to be up that high. Thankfully, the view was worth it. From the summit, you can see Lake Crescent, the parking lot, and a lot of mountains. There were also more beggy birds and one even landed on Miss Shanna’s backpack. After enjoying the view and taking a group selfie, we started going back down.
After we got off the scary ridge, we all sat down for a snack again. I ate a pineapple cake and it was delicious. Going back down the ropes was a whole lot easier than going up the ropes. You just walk down backward while leaning back and holding the rope.
Eventually, we left the ropes behind us, for which I was thankful. Somehow, I managed to run down the mountain on the flatter parts. Because of that, I reached the fork of Mt. Storm King and Marymere Falls Trails before everyone else did. Once they all caught up to me, we decided to finish Marymere Falls Trail and see Marymere Falls. Not much happened except I ran some more, and Miss Shanna, Mom, and I made a bunch of puns. Soon afterward, we walked back to the trailhead much to my relief: a nice ending for a steep, strenuous, and scary hike.
Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope y’all will read the next post about the next day in Olympic National Park when we went to see the Hoh Rainforest. Onward!
Comments are closed.