Olympic National Park: Hoh River Trail

From my journal ...

3-23-13

I'm sitting by a warm, crackling fire in the middle of the Hoh rainforest and I'm instantly reminded why I love the northwest. There are hundreds of ferns all around, and ten times that in moss. We're in the wettest spot in the mainland U.S. - the Hoh Rainforest - one of the only temperate rainforests in the world, and a region that receives up to 12 FEET of precipitation per year. Despite all that, the 3.5 hour drive over to the west side of the Olympic Peninsula was pleasantly sunny and kept us in good spirits for the upcoming trip. Our campsite is a secluded one with nobody else around - just the steady "whooshing" of the Hoh river as it runs relentlessly through this valley, determined to reach its head at the Pacific Ocean.

With our second quarter of school having just ended on Thursday, we left this Saturday morning and made our way up the peninsula. In Port Angeles, we stopped at a tiny bakery / coffee shop and fueled up on a delicious carb-filled lunch of homemade sweet potato biscuits and gravy, a hungarian sausage and cheese roll, and some Dungeness crab pot pie. We made good time and chatted about the nature of the "working forest" up here whereby sustainable harvesting/replanting protocols allow for a source of employment but also make sure that these forests don't get felled in one generation. This is a region that produces more biomass than the tropical rainforests, and trees here are hundreds of years old. In just ten minutes they can be cut down. 

We passed by Lake Crescent on the way west out of Port Angeles which was an experience of its own - a beautifully still lake, aquamarine in color, and at a depth of over 600ft (that's a 60-story skyscraper). Some estimate it to be up to 1000 ft deep, but the official depth sounders used reached their limit at 600 ft, so that's the "official" number. Carved by the glaciers during the last ice age and separated from other nearby lakes and waterways by eventual landslides, it felt like we could have been in the fjords of Norway with the tall, snow-dusted mountains around.

After chatting with the delightful park ranger at the Hoh Rainforest Visitors Center, we got to camp with only two other tents present at the complete opposite end of the park, claimed our gorgeous riverfront spot, and paid our $24 for the two nights. Had our first try at Tenkara fly fishing (Japanese mountain stream style fly fishing) but I don't think there were a lot of fish in the area ... mostly steelhead further down towards the ocean. I did get the line stuck on a log in the river and Ian bravely got his feet wet to dislodge me. Then, the line got caught in the tree behind me! Ugh. We ended up untangling that eventually, too. On our way back to the tent, Ian was having a go with fishing one last pocket when we turned around and suddenly saw a dozen Roosevelt elk. I was amazed how many there were ... we had seen three immediately upon entering the national park (one of which actually jumped in front of the car). They had even taken to grazing at our campsite so for quite some time we couldn't even return to the tent. Incredible.

Anyhow, I'll let the movie I made do the rest of the talking .... after a restful evening, we headed off onto the Hoh River Trail. It's possible to take this trail all the way to the glacier meadows at the base of Mt. Olympus (31-miles round trip), but we opted to simply hit 5-mile island and return. A lengthy, but manageable 10 miles.  It was an alternate world - moss dripping from every possible branch, ancient trees toppled over from the extra weight. We crossed various streams and passed multiple waterfalls, sometimes on sturdy wooden bridges and at other times using nothing more than a few large branches. In some places, recently fallen trees blocked the trail completely, and we had to find detours around or simply climb over. We wandered through the temperate rainforest, out along the roaring Hoh river, and through open meadows, finally reaching 5-mile island for lunch. And then we made our way, legs already sore, back to camp. It was an amazing place to experience with nobody else around. I will be back for sure, maybe next time backpacking even further into the valley! It's a very well maintained trail with still enough "backcountry" feel to it, and plenty of secluded camp spots along the way for the entire length of the trail. My mind refreshed, I'm ready to tackle the MCAT exam and my last quarter of Physics next week! Check out the movie ...

Hoh River Trail from Michael on Vimeo.

Thai curry 101, building furniture with driftwood, and watching salmon migrate!

First up, I haven't cooked Thai curry in a while and some people have asked me how to make it, so here's a quick run through:

Step 1: Prepare ingredients: coconut milk (1 can), whatever veggies you like, lime, curry paste (whatever kind you like), chili paste, and mince ginger and garlic. Sorry, I don't cook with meat here at home so if you want meat in your curry, cook it after step 2.

Step 2: Fry the garlic paste in oil (about 2 or 3 good tablespoons of curry paste for 1 can of coconut milk) along with the garlic and ginger for about 2 or 3 minutes on med-hi heat. Most people skip this step and just dissolve curry paste into coconut milk but it is NOT the same. Frying brings out the flavor in the peppers and ginger, so don't skip this step! Watch for oil splattering

Step 3: Do not dump the whole can of coconut milk in at once. Put about half a cup in, and stir it into the curry paste until it is even. Then slowly keep adding coconut milk until the whole can is used. Add about 1/2 can worth of water

Step 4: Throw the veggies in, add 1 tablespoon of sugar (I don't like my curry sweet, but if you do, add another tablespoon), and the juice of one lime. Cook about 15 mins on a gentle simmer until veggies are tender but not mushy. Don't cover the pot - your greens will lose color

Okay now for the more interesting stuff ... so Ian and I don't have a car here in Seattle. As part of moving here, we decided to adopt a lifestyle that involves walking and public transit use - I actually end up walking almost everywhere, even down to the waterfront which is only about 20 mins or so. However, once in a while having a car is useful ... so we became members of a carshare program known as ZipCar. You have a card with an electronic chip in it which locks/unlocks the car during your reservation. These cars are all over the city in various lots or on the street, and you can reserve anything from a mini cooper to a pickup truck. We got a small Subaru hatch to pick up driftwood from Discovery Park. Ian is going to build himself a desk from the driftwood (for more Discovery Park hiking pictures, see my old post). Here's a look at that adventure:

Cruise ships passing by

Driftwood with the lighthouse in the background

It hasn't been totally nailed together and sanded down yet, but here's a preliminary idea 

Unfinished, but looks nice already ... like something in a southwestern furniture shop haha! That seat is a huge log that Ian somehow managed to pull from the sand (it's ridiculously heavy).

Anyhow, now we have a couple more pieces as well that we are going to use to make planters for the garden. For now, we're going to sand down the wood to make it smoother and then put everything together

Finally ... since we reserved the car for 24hrs (we're picking up my mom & dad at the airport and dropping them off at their cruise terminal for their Alaska cruise), we decided to head over to the Ballard Locks - a uniquely engineered system of ship locks and salmon ladders. When the shipping canal from Lake Washington to the Puget Sound was built, the salmon migration pattern was disrupted. Engineers created a series of 10 or 11 salmon "ladders" to re-create the streams that the salmon must swim up in order to get to their spawning grounds. Since the water levels are different between the Pacific Ocean/Puget Sound and the freshwater Lake Washington and rivers flowing into it, these jumps help the salmon to make the elevation change.

Boats being raised in the locks to get to the higher water levels of Salmon Bay, Lake Union, and Lake Washington from the lower water levels of the Puget Sound and Pacific Ocean

Drawbridge used by cargo trains is lifted to allow boats into the locks

Like I mentioned, salmon climb up the ladders to spawn in the rivers, then the young smolt flow back out into the saltwater oceans to feed and grow up

The "slides" described in the previous picture, allowing young salmon (smolt) to flow back out to the ocean once born

Here at the salmon ladders at Ballard Locks in Seattle. After the finger pointing in the middle of the video, you can see a salmon try to swim up the clear waterfall in the bottom right corner of the video, fall down, and then successfully climb to the next level just before the video ends. Look carefully in the red box that pops up - you'll see a black-colored fish try to jump, fall, and then finally make it up.

Maybe you can identify the salmon in the next video with this guide:

Lots of different salmon in this area .... there's also one called Yukon River salmon which swims 3000 miles (instead of the "normal" 1000 or 2000 miles) and it is the most expensive salmon around here ... $33 per pound. It's SUPER fatty, rich, and delicious (so I hear)

The "underwater" view of the salmon ladders system at Ballard Locks. The video above shows the part of the ladders system that requires the salmon to swim up the waterfalls ... this part requires salmon to swim through holes in the wall where the strong current flows through. Sometimes the fish, if unprepared, get thrown upwards or to the side by the current:

I guess I can add a quick garden update. With all the sunshine going on, things seem to be sprouting and growing well...

I found it! My favorite Japanese herb called "shiso" (this specific green kind called "ao jiso"). You may know it as the "decoration" on the sushi/sashimi platter, but this peppery, minty herb is inseparable from cold somen noodles for lunch ... at least to me. I had seeds from Hawaii, but they didn't sprout so I was incredibly happy to find this guy! He's new to the garden but growing an astounding amount of new leaves every day

Lettuce is really starting to take off now since I thinned out all the weaker ones and left 4 or 5 seedlings. Starting to see some "true leaves"

You can tell chives are getting much thicker and stronger :-)

Tomato plants have now both passed the highest support ring! Both are over 3 feet tall now ... when I first got them about a month ago they were 1 foot tall. I see more than 30 flower buds - hopefully this means each one will set fruit and I'll have plenty of tomatoes!

And with that, we woke up early this morning to pick my parents up at the airport, grab a bite of smoked salmon chowder and new england clam chowder, and sent them off on a wonderful 7-day Alaskan cruise! They'll be back next weekend in town for 2 days :-) We'll be taking them to the salmon locks for sure ... lucky for them, they're in the area during migration season. Then, maybe to Steelhead Diner to eat some of the best seafood in Seattle ... so who's paying? :-P