Hurricane Ridge - Olympic National Park

Now, I have been to this place atleast a half dozen times in the last 1 year and yet the scenic beauty doesnt cease to amaze me. Every time I feel like I am looking at something new and awesome. Thats the Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Forest for you.

For more on Hurricane Ridge visit think link on Wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ridge

Sequim Lavender Festival

Sequim, the town in the midst of the Olympic Peninsula with hardly any rain. Yeah. You heard that right. Sequim pronounced as Skwim is on the other side or the right side as some might say, of the Olympics and given its geographic positioning gets just a few leftover showers from the mighty clouds that soak the rest of the peninsula. Sequim's annual rainfall is about 16 inches, that is less than half the average of the nearby Puget Sound area. Sequim is the city with about 300 days of sunshine and a refuge for folks who want to escape the ever pouring rain.

Now all the above sounds very entincing, so we decided to check out the place and its lavender festival. Because of the uniqueness in its climate, Sequim has a lush growth of lavender and it is well known for its lavender farms.

Every year in the month of July, these farms open up for visitors. There are tours and fairs organized by the local farms with buses transporting folks between the farms. The festival runs the entire weekend and is a must see, must experience. The entry fee for this weekend is 15$ a person and is money well spent. Although any other weekend would be a free visit to the farm the experience is not the same.

Another Sequim surprise worth mentioning is one of the local chinese restaurants, The Fortune Star. We read reviews that its one of the best and the reviewer couldnt believe the best chinese would be in this tiny town far away from the Greater Seattle area. The place did hold its reputation and yes the food was awesome. So do check out the restaurant as well.

For more info on the Lavender festival visit the official Sequim Lavender Festival site at http://www.lavenderfestival.com/

Wallace Falls State Park, Gold Bar, WA

Wallace Falls Trail hike has got to be the best hike I have done to date. There are only a fewer better trails within such easy reach of the Puget Sound region. Wallace Falls is one of the best falls in the Cascades with about 9 drops of atleast 50 feet. The biggest of them all is about 250 ft and is visible from US highway 2.

The trailhead is in the city of Goldbar which is on US-2. There are clear directions from US-2 to access this trailhead. The trail head has enough parking but is always full given the amount of traffic this trail gets all round the year. There are two ways of reaching the falls via the trail. One is the woody trail which is of moderate difficulty and is about 1.5 miles while the other is of railroad grade and adds about a mile to the woody trail. Both are accessible from the trail head.


The trail head is directly under Puget Sound Energy (PSE) power lines. Once we get past the cackling noise of these lines, we reach the split for the two trails. These two meet again at the lower falls. The lower falls has a nice lunch spot for family hikers who usually bring a picnic basket upto the falls and spend time with their family. The middle falls is another half mile and the upper falls adds up another .4 miles. The hike from lower to middle falls is of moderate difficulty and not suitable for amateur hikers or beginners.
The trail is not accessible to bikers, although the railroad grade trail leads the bikers to a different spot altogether.
The falls and the trail are open all round the year and a must see/hike for all enthusiasts.

Rattlesnake Trail

Rattlesnake trail is just off of I90 at NorthBend. To get to rattlesnake, get off I90 at exit 32, keep right after the exit and just follow the 436th street till it becomes Cedar Falls road which will take you right to the Rattlesnake trail. The distance is about 3+ miles for those who want to watch how far the trail is from the highway.

Rattlesnake hike is not your regular everyday trail. The slope is very steep at places and is not recommended for folks with injuries and definitely not for firsttimers. There is a small 5 mile roundtrip hike to the top of the mountain to begin with and goes upto 20 miles for people who want to go all through the snoqualmie valley.

The trail zigzags through muddy pools of water and takes you on rocks, though cut trees, wooden bridges and to astounding beauty of nature. I stopped at the Rattlesnake ledge, that gives an overlookpoint to look over the Rattlesnake lake down below. You can spot your car from teh top of the ledge that gives you a sense of achievement and makes the hike worth all the trouble.

http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes-of-the-week/rattlesnake-mountain-trail

Glacier National Park

The long weekend holidays for me are always boring. I usually end up working or sitting at home watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Not that watching TV is not good but hey its long weekend and I am expected to make some sort of long road trip. So this long weekend we set out to explore some wilderness of Glacier National Park.

To begin with, we have no experience watsoever with hiking, camping, biking, swimming, horse back riding, rafting or boating and this is what we wanted to do in GNP. The day started out with exploring and site seeing some of the local falls along the highway US-2 in western Washington and through Wenatchee. Talking about Wenatchee I will have to write another post to talk about Wenatchee alone. But for now back to GNP trip. Then we went as far as Spokane and still wanting more adventure we decided on the fly to head out to GNP. We immediately pull up information on our Win-Mo phones and make a few phone calls. Got ourselves a room on the bank of Lake McDonald in the Village Inn in Apgar Village.

The drive took about another 5 hours, total 9 hours to get to Apgar Village. The room we got to spend the nite opened into the lake, the view was the best and the feeling was just out of this world. We spent the night in the Village Inn and set out on the Road to the Sun which was a 50 mile drive filled with scenic beauty. The Chief Mountain, the Triple Arches, Mt. Clemens, wild fauna and flora just keep you engrossed all through the drive. We then camped at Rising Sun Motor Inn near the lake St.Mary for the night and then traced our way back to the city the next day.


By far this was the most adventurous trip I have had and makes me want to go there again very soon.

Here is what Wikipedia has on GNP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_National_Park_%28U.S.%29