INDEX, SEATTLE & OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK

Fortunately it's wildly busy so we'll see what we can hop through. There's Kristen coming up the butt lips crack as they call it. Butt lips is defeating me! Washington is absolutely beautiful here. Got trains coming by in the forest below. Tons of trees. We're going up Aries. Five pitch back climb. This one's a very flaring chimney. Super hard and pretty spectacular. Out here at the top of Aries. Five pitch, eight plus out in Index. This is our first climb in Index. Can't really see much from the top anchors. Which is kind of sad because it's really pretty. But, really fun. Super fun cracks. It's good stuff out here. Having fun. Pretty much different cracks all the way up. Everything from finger cracks, off width chimney, everything you name it. So, good stuff. Alright, we're out here at the Index climbers lot. So this is the parking lot. This isn't even our van but this is just one of the parking lots where there's a ton of vans. People just sleeping out. Here we are. We're doing this. People doing yoga out here. Just talking, making food and just sleeping in the lot. And the wall is right through those trees. So, pretty fun. Index in the mornings. Very pretty. Just spectacular views. You can see down to the town. And the forest below. And just all the granite. So, Chris is playing me down there. Oh man, that was tough but it was fun. Here we got Peanuts to serve here. The forest. There's our line of that crack. Pretty fun stuff on a Sunday afternoon. Oh man. Alright, hiking the last .8 miles to the van through Olympic National Park on the Enchanted Valley Trail. Pretty beautiful rainforest here. Pretty much berry picking the entire way from yesterday through today. You know, eating everything we can find. Hopefully none of them are poisonous. I think we both feel good enough that we can assume they weren't. Today, oh man, some tall trees. We hiked about 19.7 miles from the camp all the way to the end of Enchanted Valley. And then back to the car which is what we're doing now. So, almost back. Very pretty. We saw a black bear. Some deer. A ton of banana slugs. And, uh, yeah. So it's good stuff out here. Having fun. Lots of moss. And foliage. A lot like the Rainforest Cafe. If I were ever to, you know, put that into the real world. So that's pretty exciting. And, uh, I've been wanting to go back there since I went when I was a child. And Kristen won't let me, but I'll force her at some point. Anyway, here we are. Almost back to the van. Nice 20-mile day.