Exploring Olympic National Park

It was by our unfamiliarity with real winters and snow conditions that meant instead of going to mount Ranier as we had originally planned, we ended up in Olympic national park. We weren't complaining though as we were still going to be deep in the forests and doing some awesome hiking!

Our day started with a trip to the visitor information centre where we equipped ourselves with hiking maps, national park passes and of course some local knowledge. Our first stop was Elwha where we did a few warm up hikes before heading to Lake Crescent to climb to the peak of mount storm king. The drive through to lake was pretty impressive with the surrounding mountains reflecting off the glassy water, but the hike was definitely the highlight of the day. The trail was well marked (thank god) and pretty steep, with an elevation of around 3000ft! Te marked trail didnt quite take us up to the summit though and at the end there was a sign, a pretty sketchy trail and a rope. We passed a couple who told us they weren't quite adventurous to take on the rope which I guess we kind of took as a challenge!! That and we really wanted to see the view from the top! We pulled ourselves up the rope (just) trying to keep our footing as the loose gravel was slipping under our feet and there was sheer drop offs either side! We did eventually make it to the top and it was well worth every swear word I think that left my mouth on the way up as I was kinda freaking out by the drop offs either side of the path and how high we actually were!

As usual, the descent was much worse than the climb up as it was no longer a cardio work out to get up the steps but a real quad burner to maintain stability and get down the hill!

Marymere falls was next and then we tested out our new frisby in the sun on a grassy knoll. Lets just say without knowing it, I've become a pro overnight!

We stayed in a campground in the national park that night (free camping as there was no facilities or water - another night without showers!!) and had some friendly deer to share our evening with!

More hiking the next day we attempted to get down to a place called deer lake, but found out a few miles in that the track climbed a mountain that was still covered in snow... We persisted a few times but after I lost my foot in the sinking snow and my shoes filled with snow we turned back. It was then onto the coast for some beach action!

The beaches along the coast were very unimaginatively name beach 1, beach 2, beach 3 and so on.. We stopped off at beach 4 to have a look on our way to the campground. The water was very flat, the sand was black and scattered with drift wood and skipping stones! Not like the beaches were used to back home that's for sure but a very welcomed change of scenery.

The Kalaloch beach campsite that we stayed at was awesome; beach front camping with a view! We wandered the beach for a while, practiced our frisby skills and then retired to the campsite with a cider to watch the sun set! Perfect afternoon really :)

The next morning the weather had turned on us and it started to rain a little after we'd returned from our morning run! We'd made the decision though that today we would try and 'shower' or at least wash in some way and I really needed to wash my hair!! My hair was 'washed' under the outside tap and Rhys helped wash the freezing cold water through my hair.. I don't think I've ever had a brain freeze from the outside.. New experience to say the least!

Feeling clean (or at least cleaner) we hit the road and made our way toward Portland, sad to be leaving the solitude of the national park. I was in the drivers seat which took a little while for both of us to get used to! W drove through Forks, which is one of the places in twilight and they have certainly made the most of that with almost every store in the small town advertising the fact!!

We took the scenic route to Portland, down along the waterfront but the weather was very overcast so we didn't get to see a whole lot!

Once in Portland our first stop was to find a pod for the top of the car.. We'd put some of our stuff on the roof the night before and the space it created when we slept was amazing.,we couldn't go bak to sleeping with all our stuff crammed into the bak again!!

With a new pod and some new boxes to organise all our stuff, we treated ourselves to a meal out and slept like kings with a whole lot more space at Walmart!

Hit the road jack

The day finally Arrived and it was time to pack our lives back into our backpacks and leave whistler... We would be back but it was nice to say aurevoir for a while and venture out of the bubble
Packing was a mission, we'd accumulated so much whilst being in whistler it didn't even come close to fitting into our backpacks! We tried to downsize by storing, donating and throwing out so we could fit everything we thought we were going to need (and a bunch of stuff we might want) into the car..our new home! After saying a very 'sad' good bye to Brio room 409 and checking out of house, we were on our way!

After a few stops along to take photos, stock up on necessities and work out where we were going we hit the boarder. To date, our us/Canada border crossings have been eventful and this one was certainly no different. (.. we will release further details to those as requested) but we made it over and in and our first stop was Wenberg state park, just north of seattle. It was a nice quiet little spot down by a lake and it was so super quiet! After what had felt like a massive day cleaning, packing and driving we were glad to finally be able to rest our heads and slept surprisingly well for the first of many nights in the back of the car! ..we didn't make the most of the showering facilities available at the camp ground as it was only day 2 and we didn't smell that bad yet..but maybe we should've if we had known it would be a while before we saw any showers (or even warm water)again..

Day 2 once again bought good weather and after packing into the car and grabbing a coffee from the nearest gas station we were on the road again! (Please don't think anything less of me mum, it doesn't taste that bad and still gives us the kick we need to do our daily activities :) ) First stop was Tacoma, where we were hoping for a bit of an engineering hit in driving across the Tacoma narrows bridge; hopefully without it falling!! We drove around the town a bit and down to the port where there were some pretty huge navy ships and some pretty scenery! The next stop was to be mt rainier national park but after a conversation with the checkout chick at a Safeway just outfit Tacoma and checking the national park status online (sitting indiscreetly in a maccas using their wifi's) we learned that without chains on the car we wouldn't be allowed into the park.. We hadn't even thought about the snow!! We didn't let it dampen our spirits and instead detoured to Olympic national park.

We stopped in Port Angeles and after a picnic dinner at the pier we spent our first night in a Walmart carpark!! What a night it was too..we got free hot water to do the dishes in the car park, the store was open 24 hours so there was always toilets available, we did a bit of late night shopping en route to cleaning our teeth and saw all the interesting people who shop at Walmart at the weirdest hours of the day !! Rhys even had some entertainment while waiting for me to clean my teeth in the morning as he watched a conversation between the checkout chick and a 'true american'. the guy had icing sugar on his face from eating donuts and the lady politely told him so only to be answered with i 'don't care that anyone knows I ate a powered donut; I'm a proud American!' Way better entertainment than the morning news!!

The last supper

As a treat for our last night out in whistler, we ventured on a double date to a rather classy establishment called Araxi. It's one of those restaurants we'd always walked past but never thought we would actual ever go to! lucky for us as the village is getting quieter as winter comes to an end they were having a 5 course special and we decided to treat ourselves!
To say it was amazing was an understatement! The food was really good, the wine was tasty and we probably could've stayed there all night sharing stories with Jake and Lisa had we not known that we had to be up early to pack!

It's going to be hard to leave whistler and the friends we've made here; especially the ones we've only just started to get to know and won't be around when we get back! But there is Facebook and Skype (and weddings ) on the way so it's not going to be the end!
Saying au Revoir to our new friend whistler isn't going to be hard as the last few weeks have dragged on due to the drop in numbers in the village and we know we will be back, this time to enjoy the summer activities we've been missing for the last 6 months!

So for now, we're packing our lives back into our back packs (and the rest of the stuff that we've accumulated into boxes in storage ) and jumping into Jimmy and hitting the open road!

A Whistler Winter

So it’s almost the end of April and it seems like we’re counting down the days to the end of the season. It feels like yesterday we were buying our snow gear, training for our new jobs and remembering how to snowboard! It’s all gone so quickly. 

We haven’t posted as much as we would have liked to over the season as we have been super busy working, riding and celebrating life so I thought I would take the time to recap on the things we haven’t posted about while we've been living the dream in Whistler! 

 We’ve been lucky enough to have friends visit from home while we’ve been in town. I’m sure they came to visit the mountain and it was just a co-incidence that we had made Whistler our home but it was nice to see some familiar faces and show them around town!

Adam Ward was the first to visit and although his visit was cut short by our trip to Seattle we had a few good days on the mountain, one where we hiked to the top of Flute Bowl and rode the knee deep powder all the way to the bottom; and in particular; one memorable meal at Mongolie Grill. Adam also visited during Gay Pride Week so he and Rhys got a few interesting stares when the two of them shared a few après beers at the pub!! 

Hiking to the top of Flute Bowl

Ryan Buckley was the next to grace us with his presence. Rhys took the week of work to hang out with Ryan and make sure he had a full tour of Whistler; from waffles at the Crystal Hut, Fresh Tacks breakfast, a visit to Creekbread and our first Cross country skiing adventure (more on that later). We were also lucky enough to take part in the Grocery Store’s rendition of the harlem shake where we all got dressed up in costume and headed into the store at about 1130pm after it had closed and filmed ‘the shake’ on the security camera! Check out the conclusion of our shenanigans.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEhHYU0BAdM

 

Ryan spent a few days in Vancouver before heading back to reality so we to made the trip out of the Whistler bubble down to Van for the night. We’d timed it perfectly too to see the Canucks play the Predators! After decking ourselves out in Canucks merchandise it was off to the game.

We were sitting in about the third tier but it was perfect viewing location as we could see all the action on the ice! The Canucks took out the game in style, winning 7-4 and even included a few fights and a penalty shot! The atmosphere at the game was like nothing we’d ever experienced at a game before; the stadium was full and at least 70% of the crowd was wearing jerseys, there was entertainment between each period and during the game and I got a visit from the Canucks mascot Fin!

 

While we were in Van we also did a bit of exploring and headed over to Granville Island to show Ryan around. We ended up at the Granville markets and after a hearty hangover breakfast we made our way out side to watch the street performer. Somehow Rhys became part of the show and the next thing we knew he was throwing knives, being called "Australia" and helping the guy up onto a 6 foot unicycle! Ryan was the DJ for the show and half way through the show answered a phone call from the performers father.. funny stuff in the end and a great way to spend a miserable day in Van! 

Just before Ryan left for Vancouver the sun came out for the day so we decided to trade our snow boards for skinny skis and take a chance at Cross Country Skiing..None of us had any idea what we were getting ourselves into but the shoes were surprisingly comfy and we were ready for the challenge. 

We managed to stay on our feet for the most of the time and luckily had the go pro on for one of our major stacks! Its hard to avoid collision when the person in front of you is following in the same tracks as you and travelling at a different pace! The boys thought it was a lot of hard work for not getting to go very fast, but I loved it. It was almost like going for a run in that you were getting a good all round cardio workout but it wasn’t as hard on your joints or anything so it was enjoyable and totally different! I can definitely see how it’s considered the toughest sport around though! We were even lucky enough to have our maiden voyage caught on film as they were shooting an advertisement while we were there and Rhys knew the guy filming it! Check it out ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAeKUbE9hjY

All in all it was fun spending time and sharing Whistler with a few friends from back home.. I wonder who will be next?! 

The end of February came around (in between Ryan and Adam's visits) and I celebrated my quarter century in style.

While I spent my actual birthday working from 815am to 730pm, I made sure to drag out the celebrations! A few days before the big day a few friends took me up for fresh tracks breakfast on a SUPER busy powder day and a few days later Rhys and I had a day on the big kid skis (ie. not the beginner ones) which ended with me falling in the powder and hurting my knee on the last run – typical! We had a delicious dinner (and ended up eating a little too much cake!) and had a few celebration drinks with friends at Merlins.

But the celebrations didn’t end there as Rhys treated us to a day at the Scandinave spa where we had very relaxing Swedish massages followed by relaxing in the hot / cold baths, sauna, steam and relaxation room for a few hours! Perfect way to spend the day and celebrate old age! 

In late March Whistler was host to the Nordic Ski Festival, where a bunch of guys from around the world all came to battle it out on the skinny ski's and the ski jumping! We went down one beautiful sunny day to watch the ski jumping and were in awe of the size of the jump and what the guys were able to do! The skis seemed to be almost twice their size and the jump looked daunting from the bottom.. I don't know where they get the courage to jump but I certainly wouldn't be doing it any time soon!

We also ventured to the 'train wreck' down at Function Junction where..as the name says it.. a train had de-railed a fair few years ago and the abandoned carriages have been graffitied and turned into a bike / skate park. It was kind of cool to see but apparently we narrowly missed a fine from the cops for walking along the train line!

Then came the time for shopping and getting prepped for our ‘dead season’ road trip! Our first major purchase was ‘Jimmy’, a gold GMC SUV with (hopefully) plenty of room in the back and more than ready to take us where we want to go! And where is that you ask? Well.. we’re a little ambitious and want to see everything while we’re over here (kind of so we don’t have to come back!) so we really want to see as much as possible. We’ve done a bit of research and have come up with a basic plan of heading down the west coast of the USA, then coming up through Las Vegas and up through to Calgary and Banff, the back to the west coast of Canada to take us to the Alaska Marine Highway and the ferry that will take us up to Alaska and the Yukon.. and then back to Whistler for the best part of summer! 

We even started prepping for the warmer weather by buying some new summer clothes at various closing down sales in the village and I even turned a few pairs of long pants into shorts! 

There are a few more purchases we need to make before its time to head off, but with the bulk of it already paid for, we’re almost ready to pack our bags and our lives into the back of the car and hit the road!! It will be sad to leave Whistler winter as we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the winter and all that the snow brought with it but we’ve both definitely realized that our bodies (and minds) are tuned to the summer and all that it brings with it! It’s not so much the warmth but the summer activities like hiking, biking and swimming that we are missing the most!  While there will definitely be more snow adventures in the future we can’t wait for the warmer weather or for our new adventure to begin on the road!