My year 2007 has been full of awesome moments, a lot – good and not so great things – has happened but the year is ending under very happy circumstances. However, this time I am telling about my last day of 2007.
Today, the last day of the year was full of excitement. As everybody knows, I truly love the nature and outdoors – even though I just spent wonderful time in Alaska, nothing, not even a cold, could keep me inside on this very sunny day.
So I packed Tassu in the car with all the hiking gear and we headed towards the Olympic National Forest, the plan was to do an easy hike and enjoy awesome views. The ferry trip from Seattle to Bainbridge Island went well, not even my vehicle’s tilt alarm went off this time. As always, Tassu was a perfect ferry rider. Actually he loves all kind of traveling with me – no matter whether it is by a car, kayak, train or just plain walking.
From the ferry we started our journey towards Kloshe Nanich Trailhead which is about 40 miles west of Port Angeles, located just off the famous scenic Highway 101. Every time the Highway 101 looks prettier and prettier in my eyes, and as always, I had to make a few additional photo stops. The time flew by, and we didn’t make too early to the snowy trailhead. I was a bit concerned about low-hanging clouds and fog that we saw along the way but thought the mountains will block the fog so that it won’t bother us. Oh well, never make any assumptions with the mother nature.
The wind storm earlier this year has swiped off a good part of Olympic area’s trails, downed trees are blocking paths and whatnot. Our nice uphill hike turned out to include also some jumping over trees or crawling under them, as well as making the path our own. Once we got close to the turning point of our hike, I realized that it had gotten pretty dark and the base of the mountain was covered with the fog.
So here the adventure began …. no visible path, it got darker and darker and the fog didn’t help at all. I was pretty happy about my ten essentials today, or actually just a couple of items – a compass and a map were great things to carry in the backpack. And Maglite is always my friend. I ended up to doing some serious wilderness navigation for finding the car… Tassu had a good time though when I let him run off leash, and little puppy was all tuckered out when we got back to the vehicle.
The navigation experience was not the only exciting moment but shortly after leaving the trailhead, we almost hit an elk. This close call definitely woke me up since the Olympic’s native, Roosevelt elk was only a couple of feet from my car.
His front legs were already on the white solid line on the right side when he suddenly decided to stop. I hit the brakes, and it was a very good thing to have safety belts fastened, not only for me but Tassu too. Otherwise poor puppy would have hit himself pretty badly to the back of the front seat. This experience kept me shivering for a while, had to get some coffee from the first gas station that we saw. Exciting, huh? I can’t even wait what our hiking trip tomorrow will bring ….
Happy New Year 2008 to everybody!
And all of you who are making New Year resolutions – good luck!
“He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool.” -F.M. Knowles
