Last week we headed over to the Olympic Peninsula to Salt Creek Recreation Area. This is actually a camp ground I stayed at when I was a teenager. I remembered the beach and which campsite we stayed in! We got there on Sunday and stayed eight nights. The first few days were great and then the evenings got very windy and cold so that made it difficult. This is the longest camping trip we've ever taken with the kids and they had a blast!
Monday we had to explore the beach of course! From the campground the only way there is by climbing all over some rocky areas. At first the kids were very hesitant but as the week went on even Carson was climbing around on his own!
This "island" is only accessible when the tide is out. You can actually climb up on top of it and walk around. We actually did that later on as a family.
Carson is standing in Salt Creek as it makes its way out to the ocean. We had to be careful when we climbed down to the beach because when the tide comes in you will get very wet trying to get back to camp!
This was Leela's first exposure to the ocean. She was willing to run around and play with me in the waves, Hank simply stopped at the edge and stared at me!
Carson LOVED running away from the waves!
It stayed remarkably shallow for quite a ways out, Kayda and I had fun walking out there together.
We decided to take the "bluffs trail to the bunker". Carson wanted to be in the stroller so we pushed it up there! He decided to get out when we hit some stairs. Unfortunately this wasn't the only time we brought the stroller when we shouldn't have!
These are the projectiles for the 16 inch guns that used to be at this bunker.
Tuesday we headed up to Hurricane Ridge. It was the nicest weather we experienced the whole week!
They had paved trails and then they had this trail that headed up the ridge for a better view. We decided to go for it! Dillon got a little nervous on the steep, exposed sections and Carson didn't decide to go to the top until Daddy, brother and sister were about half way there. This was one of those trails that we should have left the stroller behind for!
There were quite a few signs talking about different things you could see, the silver snags from the 2003 fire, the caldera, and the plants. Kayda wanted to stop and read every single one!
Not that you can see it in the picture but out across the Strait is Canada!
There's the visitor center where we parked!
After Hurrican Ridge we headed into Port Angeles to get some lunch and see the Feiro Marine Life Center.
We learned that if you stick your finger down in between the spines of a sea urchin they will close down onto your finger and try to hold on. Kayda and I had a great time doing that! Kayda is willing to touch pretty much every sea creature. I had to ask her to stop touching the sea anemones in the tide pools because she closed them all up so other people couldn't see them!
Dillon and Carson abandoned the sea creatures quite quickly to play with the sand!
Our next stop on Tuesday was the Dungeness Spit. You walk down a paved path to the spit and then can walk along its beach. The waves were very loud and Carson did NOT like it. He kept wanting to be held or to walk farther away from the waves up in the driftwood.
Kayda wanted to walk all the way out to the lighthouse. You can see a TINY white dot on the right on the ocean's horizon.... we didn't go that far.
Carson wanted to stop walking because of the waves. I guess Daddy used a piggy back ride to persuade Carson to keep going.
We thought it was so neat that people balanced all this rocks all over these roots! They were also on the logs all around it!
Kayda decided to add one of her own. She discovered that she likes to balance the rocks on our last camping trip.
We tried to get all of our footprints.
Beating the waves!
The kids did so well with all the walking and such on Tuesday that Wednesday we went looking for a hike. I read a brochure about the Madison Creek Falls. It was supposed to be handicap accessible so we could bring the stroller for Carson, great! We found it, walked 400ft and were there. Talk about a let down when you are expecting a good long walk! So we asked about other nearby hikes. One of the people working on the railings was there and recommended Goblin Gates. It sounded like it was pretty neat so we took off to find a map. We went to the ranger station, closed. But they had a really basic map to give us an idea. We found the trailhead, looked at the map briefly and took off (there were signs we were planning to follow).
Dillon's "wolf" was attacking him! We walked and found a sign that said "Overlook", kept going to find "Rica Canyon" so we kept going. Found "Krause Bottom", Daddy kept going to find "Humus Cabin". We turned around and went back to overlook. The map had shown the way was the first turn off from the main trail. We hike down there and look at the altitude down to the river, hiked back up and headed back.
We found a rock IN a tree, the trunk completely encased it.
Here is overlook
There's the river WAY down there. We were very frustrated. We went and looked back at the map again and it still wasn't clear.
Wednesday we headed back to the beach. We climbed up onto the island together.
These kids are SO comfortable climbing around now. They kind of scare me despite the fact that they are careful.
The top of the island!
Hermit crab! We got to see a lot of critter. Sea anemones, star fish, crabs, hermit crabs, mussels, barnacles, chitons...
Thursday evening it was really windy and cold at camp so we headed into Port Angeles where it is usually about seven degrees warmer. We had seen this playground on the way to camp the first day. The kids had a blast on it! There was a skate park right next to it where the kids had a great time watching the bicyclists and skateboards. We actually went back Friday for a little while and there was a roller derby team getting ready to skate. We waited around so Kayda could watch them only to discover it was only their second time in a skate park. The skated around like they were just learning to skate. We didn't stick around long after that!
Friday we went out at low tide again to find more critters. If you moved the rocks around you could EASILY find 5+ crabs at a time.
All the kids held them!
Touching a sea anemone.
Hermit crabs were the biggest hit! The kids liked watching them pop in and out of their shells. A couple of the crabs actually ditched their shells and tried to escape naked!
Saturday was when most everyone else got there. (Uncle Pat, Nathan, Grandma and Papa H all came Friday). Once the cousins got there we didn't see much of our kids anymore around camp! They were off playing! Sunday Kellina and I decided to take another go at finding Goblin Gates just with Kayda and Ella.
We went to overlook and headed down the trail just like the map seemed to indicate. The trail quickly deteriorated to a game trail with steep sections that we carefully helped the girls get down. The girls wanted to keep going and we didn't know how else to get there so we just crossed our fingers and kept going. We eventually made it to the bottom where it met up with an actual trail. Come to find out the "trail" indicated on the map to get to Goblin Gates doesn't actually exist. You go down Rica Canyon. Would have been nice if we could have gotten a good map from the ranger station. Oh yeah, it was closed AGAIN.
Goblin Gates, sounds a lot cooler than it it. Though the water was beautiful.
We finally found a sign on the way back . At the BOTTOM of the Rica Canyon trail. It was very frustrating.
While the girls were out having an adventure in the wilderness the boys got to go out on the Strait of Juan De Fuca with Papa H. The went for a ride to pull up crab pots and then played on the beach while other people got a turn. I have to try to get some pictures from Papa since the camera was with me!
Monday we headed home and ended up having one of our trailer wheels start smoking. Fortunately we were really close to an RV sales/services place so we dropped it off, unloaded the necessities and headed for home. The kids had a great time with their cousins, we had fun on the beach and hiking but it is not a campground we'll be going to again soon! Though now that we've discovered the kids enjoy and can handle hiking we'll be doing a lot more of that, maybe even a backpacking trip in the near future!
