Olympic National Park, Washington

In June 2009, my Godmother and I traveled to Olympic National Park together.  This is where and when I caught the NP bug!  All of it was a new experience to me.  The flight itself was the longest flight I had ever been on.  On top of the flight it was the first time I ever experienced jet lag!  The airport in Seattle is beautiful I must say, of course most airports are compared to Logan.  Our first night there we stayed at the Marriott hotel near the airport because we landed so late.  We slept in the next day, read the Seattle Times and relaxed in the hot tub, we had quite a ride ahead of us to Port Angeles!
On our way to Port Angeles we stopped at a grocery store and stocked up, we had no idea what to expect.  We thought Port Angeles was going to be a rural area without any stores - and we were camping out.  Our luggage was super heavy, full of portable stoves and cooking utensils, sleeping bags, hiking boots - everything you would expect. We spent well over an hour shopping and planning out our meals, unnecessarily!
Port Angeles - not very rural at all!  Lots of grocery stores; stores with spectacular mountain views, tons of restaurants, and even our campground had...a hot tub!

Here is the view from the grocery store!

We spent our first day there settling into our campsite and exploring town.  Port Angeles is a beautiful town with many seafood restaurants, a nice seaside harbor - the gateway to Victoria, Canada.  The Washington coast line is known for its rocky coast (larger scale than Maine of course), its evergreen trees, rocky beaches and its delicious crab!  Their coffee isn't so bad either!  Here is Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles:

Beach logs are a common danger on most beaches on the Washington coast.  Logs that have fallen or have been cut down by loggers end up in the rivers and eventually jam up where the ocean and rivers meet.  The tides take the logs out and then eventually they come violently back to the shores.

Our first full day we decided of course to get into Olympic NP!  Everyone told us the place to start is to drive up to the Hurricane Ridge visitors center.  The drive up was spectacular and steep!  We drove through tunnels built into mountainsides:

The mountains grew larger and the drop offs grew steeper!  Tree line began to disappear!  Recently, in Colorado actually, John and I learned exactly what the definition of tree line really is.  Growing up on the east coast, we thought tree line just had to do with height, however our mountains are much, much smaller than in the rest of the country!  Trees typically stop growing because of cold temperatures, air pressure or because of lack of moisture and oxygen levels.

The trees are growing scarce right about where we are standing!  This was at about 5,000 feet.

In June there was still snow left at the top!