Olympic National Park, Hurricane Ridge & Dungeness Spit | Class B RV Living

What's up guys it's Christine and Aaron from Irene Iron Fitness and today is Olympic National Park Day and we're actually at the Dungeness Spit which is right north of the park entrance a little bit and we're gonna take a little I don't know how many mile hike we're gonna do but. So the tide comes in high right now we're at the low tide time and we're just basically on a race against the tide and we're gonna walk as far as we can until the tide forces us to stop. So it took us an hour to drive here and then we poked around like 15-20 minutes to find out where to park. We're finally getting out it looks like we need to pay like a three dollar entrance fee so we're gonna go pay that fee get on the spit and start walking. We would love to walk the entire thing which is like five six miles or five miles to the lighthouse that we want to see and it all depends on that tide so we got to get our butts out there and just get out there as fast as we can and start hopping it. And if you've never heard of a spit like we've never heard of it's similar to like a sandbar it's just like a formation of land that jets out into a body of water kind of like a so that's how we ended up here and we're excited to see what it has. We're gonna get going and pay the fee and then we'll see you out on the trail. All right so here we are at the pay station it is three dollars and it's kind of nice it's three dollars no matter how many people are in your party it's three dollars oh per family up to four adults. But this is what the Dungeness spit looks like you can see it's kind of a big peninsula part of land. And the lighthouse is five miles out so we're gonna see how far we can get. And the ranger just told us that despite the tide we will be able to walk the whole thing. Yeah it doesn't completely cover in water it just like starts coming in. So with that information I'm gonna go grab a couple protein bars stick them in our pocket in case we do want to keep going and we want to walk you know 10 to 12 mile hike today so then we're off then we're on our way. Yeah that's the spit it goes out five plus miles and you can see that it's not an easy like walk it's kind of like walking on a rocky beach I guess but as the tide comes in that gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Is that the lighthouse right down there? Yeah. Oh wow. The lighthouse is way over there so they say it's deceivingly long you know how because it kind of curves out. Yeah. So the lighthouse looks kind of close but okay we're out in the middle of the curve it's uh many miles out there. Huh. So pretty cool. Yeah we probably won't walk the whole thing. I don't think so I don't think we have time today if we want to see a lot of Olympic. Yes so we'll just walk a little bit and then turn around and then head back towards the van so we can get towards Olympic the Hurricane Ridge. So the spit was formed about 10,000 years ago by melting glacier and the melting glacier left thick sediments of sand and gravel which we have here and it continues to change shape even today through waves and wind the wind pushes the waves the waves carry the soil and then the soil just deposits on and changes the form ongoing and then things like plants hold the soil in place so what you see now won't be exactly what's here in say 100 years from driftwood down here are crazy big I guess they're like the trees that are all around here in the Pacific Northwest. They're huge. They're massive so usually when you think of like driftwood it's like a little tiny piece that somebody has collected they put on their coffee table but these are like trunks and they're just massive and roots and so you can kind of see like once you get down here it's it's pretty cool. It smells like fish and salt. Yeah. And there's lots of little sand fleas and sand bugs. I'm really glad I'm bundled up because I'm overly reactive to bug bites especially sand fleas. I've had some bad experiences. So if you are also a bug geek like I am make sure you wear socks that cover your ankles, boots, and gloves. And I'm still nervous. Yeah she is nervous she's actually ready to go we've been here for about six minutes. Okay I've seen enough I'm ready to go. She's ready to go. Well basically the tide moves in and out every day and all the seaweed is left and that's where you get all those sand fleas from and it's uh you know most of this is covered by water. I just don't do well with sand fleas. Yeah so we're gonna mosey around a little bit more and then we're gonna continue on to Olympic National Park and we're going up to Hurricane Ridge and we're gonna go find a nice little hike up there to do. All right so we made it to the top of Hurricane Ridge at Olympic National Park. It wasn't too far of a drive from the Dungeness Spit. Maybe well it was like an hour. One hour. Yeah it was kind of long. Not mileage wise but it went quick though. When you start driving up the mountain it takes a little bit of time. But it's pretty high up here it's like seven or eight thousand feet elevation and uh we're gonna go on a little hike. There's one right out of the visitor center here on Hurricane Ridge and it's called Hurricane Hill and it's 3.1 miles uh loop there and back and uh we're hoping to see some some beautiful views. Yes it's stunning from the parking lot so should be good. Yeah it's pretty popular up here at this visitor center. I think this is the the most popular part of the park. The one part of the park that I read about was called the Ho Valley. Ho? Yeah. Like h-o-e? Like h-o-w? I don't remember uh but it was it's like the rainforest. Oh really? Yes. Lush? It's like all that uh green moss and like beautiful it's kind of like that creepy campsite. Like Wenatchee? Yeah like Wenatchee National Forest where we almost went camping. Cool that sounds nice. Yeah but otherwise uh we're gonna hit that hike and uh see what beautiful views we got going on out there. Yes. I'm super comfortable right now though so it's nice to have this little guide here for the mountain peaks. Mount Olympus right there by those clouds. Having these ridges here really help identify the peaks like that's the Long Ridge right there and that Dodger Point Mountain and Mount Dana. Those are really pretty. It's nice. Well it's closed. I'm not sure what we're gonna do now. We're gonna have to reassess which uh trail we're gonna go on because we wanted something kind of moderate. We don't have a ton of time to go on a really huge hike but we don't want to go on like a mile hike. We want to go on you know a three four mile hike five mile hike or something similar to that but this one's closed. Hurricane Hill. We could drive down that overlook. Yeah we might do Obstruction Point. Obstruction Point. Yeah Obstruction Point overlook. There's a bunch of cool trails. The drive is really cool but the road is a single lane gravel dirt road with a sheer cliff on the one side so. We've had a lot of practice with the bumpy gravel lately. Yeah. Minus the sheer cliff. It sounds kind of scary though but we're gonna have to reassess Ridge here that are around a half mile a piece and you can kind of just loop them all together to get a good couple miles in but it's pretty it's pretty beautiful up here. It is uh the views are are vast and these ridges are great. I can see why this Hurricane Ridge is one of the more popular points in the park. It's uh the views are just outstanding. It's you can see for miles. You can see Canada out there. Yeah that was cool. Yeah and it's uh it's pretty high up here. It's nice. Yeah and I have to talk about um when we were getting ready in the van and I asked Aaron like three times if I looked like a stalker or like a terrorist or anything crazy with my hat and my hoodie and my glasses. Aaron's like no you look great. You look good. You look perfect. What other answer do you give? And then as soon as we're walking he starts ragging on me on how creepy I look and we got the unibomber over here. I got yeah I'm like um something that would have been useful three minutes ago but it is really chilly up here. Everybody's complaining about how cold it is and I feel good. The only downside is is that it is right next to the actual visitor center so everybody kind of comes here and the trails are packed so that's why we're kind of trying to go away a little bit farther on that hurricane hill to get out away from the pack but um you know this is what it is. The views are beautiful. I'm feeling the elevation a little bit. Are you? Yeah you can definitely feel it when you hike. I don't feel it in my lungs yet. You can feel it in your lungs. They get tight quick. Yeah and it's I think it's like 65 degrees today and like partly sunny so it's hot and then cold and hot. Yeah it's right on that border where it's really nice like right now the sun's beating down on us and it feels it feels awesome and then at other times the sun goes away and it's like freezing. We got really lucky with the sunshine today because the like ever since we've been in the state of Washington it's been cold and rainy and today it's sunny the fog there's no fog out here so we can actually see all these peaks. It's amazing the amount of peaks that are out here. Yep yeah you either get lucky or unlucky. We're lucky today. Yep we can see a lot of the peaks so you can come up here and not see like five feet in front of your face the the fog is so thick. Yeah that would be a disappointment. It would but it's very very peaceful up here it's nice. It's so nice up here. So even though we didn't get the trail that we wanted it was still a success and you just can't complain about anything when you're up here. Nope can't complain about nature.