I had midweek plans fall through and had 2 free days where the wife already expected me to be out of town. This brought to mind one question: so what kind of 36 hour trip do I want to do?
TO THE MOUNTAINS!
I popped into my WTA Trailblazer saved holes and looked for some suitable milage and elevation gain for an overnighter. At that point I remembered I should check the weather: an atmosphere river coming in!?
OK, revised trail filter: appropriate distance, somewhere I haven't been before, in the Northeast Olympics hoping to be in the rain shadow. After checking the permit situation, I booked a night at Royal Lake. As I gathered my gear, I was preparing to run into some rain or at least some wet underbrush.
The next morning I was up at 6:30 and off to Port Angeles, I needed to borrow a bear canister. The first 75 minutes of drive from Tacoma was in the rain, but after the Hood Canal Bridge the ground was dry beneath the solid cloud cover. I picked up the bear canister and had a ranger print my permit and went off to the trailhead. The closer I got to the trailhead, the more breaks in the clouds. It turned out, besides the night/morning fog, I'd have sunshine the entire trip.
I started along the Dungeness River before hanging a right to follow Royal Creek upwards.
What a beautiful area and a wonderful trail.
After 3.5 hours, I reached Royal Lake and set up camp and dropped most of my gear before heading further up the trail to the upper basin.
I was the only person up there so I found a rock to sit on and take in the grandeur.
I watched this very healthy doe graze on willows in the meadow, keeping a periodic eye on me.
I found another critter on the buffet line, this time loading up on lupine.
I think I found his home
And another, but I wasn't able to tell what it's greens de jour were.
There was a variety of wildflowers, but most seemed to be at the tail end of their season, some that I don't recall seeing before.
An hour and a half later the sun was creeping it's was behind the peaks so I went back to camp, took a quick swim in the lake and made dinner.
While eating dinner next to the lake I noticed some small fish rising, then a couple larger ones, then more and more all across the lake, brookies. Most of the fish were 3-6 inches but there were some larger one including this 10 incher hanging out next to the bank. The fish didn't look snake-like or stunted. WDFW has no record of it being planted so I'm going to guess it happened quite a long time ago and they reproduce in the lake, but it doesn't have any consistent inlets or outlets, maybe springs?
As the sun set, the fog moved up the valley and settled into the basin, time for me to retire and head home in the morning. Royal Basin, I'll be back, next time with a 3 weight.
TO THE MOUNTAINS!
I popped into my WTA Trailblazer saved holes and looked for some suitable milage and elevation gain for an overnighter. At that point I remembered I should check the weather: an atmosphere river coming in!?
OK, revised trail filter: appropriate distance, somewhere I haven't been before, in the Northeast Olympics hoping to be in the rain shadow. After checking the permit situation, I booked a night at Royal Lake. As I gathered my gear, I was preparing to run into some rain or at least some wet underbrush.
The next morning I was up at 6:30 and off to Port Angeles, I needed to borrow a bear canister. The first 75 minutes of drive from Tacoma was in the rain, but after the Hood Canal Bridge the ground was dry beneath the solid cloud cover. I picked up the bear canister and had a ranger print my permit and went off to the trailhead. The closer I got to the trailhead, the more breaks in the clouds. It turned out, besides the night/morning fog, I'd have sunshine the entire trip.
I started along the Dungeness River before hanging a right to follow Royal Creek upwards.
What a beautiful area and a wonderful trail.
After 3.5 hours, I reached Royal Lake and set up camp and dropped most of my gear before heading further up the trail to the upper basin.
I was the only person up there so I found a rock to sit on and take in the grandeur.
I watched this very healthy doe graze on willows in the meadow, keeping a periodic eye on me.I found another critter on the buffet line, this time loading up on lupine.
I think I found his home
And another, but I wasn't able to tell what it's greens de jour were.
There was a variety of wildflowers, but most seemed to be at the tail end of their season, some that I don't recall seeing before.
An hour and a half later the sun was creeping it's was behind the peaks so I went back to camp, took a quick swim in the lake and made dinner.
While eating dinner next to the lake I noticed some small fish rising, then a couple larger ones, then more and more all across the lake, brookies. Most of the fish were 3-6 inches but there were some larger one including this 10 incher hanging out next to the bank. The fish didn't look snake-like or stunted. WDFW has no record of it being planted so I'm going to guess it happened quite a long time ago and they reproduce in the lake, but it doesn't have any consistent inlets or outlets, maybe springs?
As the sun set, the fog moved up the valley and settled into the basin, time for me to retire and head home in the morning. Royal Basin, I'll be back, next time with a 3 weight.
