Hey guys!
On Day 3, we completed our High Divide Loop camping trip. We were originally planning to stay on the trail for one more night, but we all wanted to get off the trail. The downhill terrain gave us confidence that we could easily complete the High Divide Loop on this day and not need to camp an additional night. The night before, as I mentioned in the last post (go read if you haven’t yet), I was doing calculations on how long the hike back to the car would be. It was 7-8 miles and I guessed we would get back to the car by 5:00 if the trail was downhill or flat.
We were expecting warm and clear weather, which was a happy change from the last two days and nights. We were still high up on a mountain, therefore, it was still cold when we woke up and got ready to leave. This was when we all noticed the gorgeous view at our campsite. In between some trees, we could see Mt. Olympus and Blue Glacier. Once we saw Miss Shanna again, she mentioned how she heard that the view was a rare sight. We didn’t see it when we arrived because it was dark and cloudy. After we finished packing up and admiring the view, we started the third section of our hike.
As we slowly went down the trail, we finally saw Heart Lake. As expected, it was heart-shaped until we got further down the mountain and hiked closer to the lakeshore. When we reached Heart Lake, the lake appeared to be more of a U-shape. We stopped to fill our bladders and explore the lakeshore. While we were there, we found out that we stayed at the wrong campsite. This was where we were supposed to stay the night before. As we were filtering water, Mom and I watched a little bird bouncing around in the lake. It was adorable. It dived, stayed under for a couple of seconds, then jumped out of the water.
As we continued on the trail, the lower in elevation we got, the less ice and snow we encountered. I thought the third day was a lot easier than the other two days, other than the distance of course. Unfortunately, after we entered the forest, we didn’t see a lot of great views, but the few we saw were of snowy mountains. They were pretty, but we had been in the snowy mountains for a couple of days by now, so it wasn’t anything new. It would probably have been more impressive if we had hiked the other direction toward the snowy mountains. We continued to make our way through the forest and eventually decided to take a snack break. After a while, the trail temporarily flattened where we had to cross a wide creek, but thankfully it was shallow. Soon enough, we reached Rocky Creek.
Originally, we planned to camp at Rocky Creek and hike for four days rather than three. We could’ve stopped because we had a permit to stay here for the night, but we all wanted to get off the trail. As we resumed hiking and said goodbye to what would have been our campsite for the night, we were surrounded by the forest. It was pretty with all of the greenery and mossy rocks. We soon reached one of the Sol Duc campsites and decided to stop for another snack break there. Afterward, we continued hiking for one to two miles and then saw a little hut we saw on Day 1. This meant we were close to Sol Duc Falls, which meant we were close to finishing the High Divide Loop. We were soon on a wider trail; that’s when we started seeing more people, a very good sign because it meant the parking lot was getting close.
We soon got to Sol Duc Falls, but I was super tired so we took a quick break. After we finished the break, we persisted because we wanted to get off the trail. When we ran into the little bridge we saw at the beginning of our hike on Day 1, I was happy. We were so close to the end! I started walking faster until we reached the last hill where I practically ran up it. And that’s when we saw the most glorious sight of all …the parking lot. We hobbled over to our car and put away our packs. I was so happy about being able to sit on something soft.
Because we finished the hike a day early, we had to find a place to stay. We tried the lodges in Olympic National Park, but they were full and had no more rooms. So we went back to Port Angeles to find a place to stay. Thankfully, we found a room at the Quality Inn where finally got to take showers! We were also grateful for food. I was excited to eat something that wasn’t freeze-dried. When we were picking up dinner, we found an ice cream truck called Welly’s Real Ice Cream. It was the best ice cream I’ve ever had! It tasted fresh and natural. I got the strawberry. Usually, I don’t like strawberry ice cream, but this was amazing. This was the perfect way to end our day and hike.
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