Olympic National Park move to Fairholme Campground

We woke up to drizzly cloud-covered skies. That's the kind of weather that we expected in the Pacific Northwest, but we had been lucky to escape thus far. Our lithium battery was at 65% this morning, which was the lowest reading so far on this trip. In our shaded camp site at Mora Campground, we had been generating 5-6 amps per day. Since our refrigerator uses around 10 amps per day, plus more needed for lights and water pump, we used more electricity than we generated for these last three days. We couldn't use our electric induction plate to cook under those circumstances. Mark cooked our breakfast using our gas grill, and it was as good as it looked.

We hooked up the trailer, and left by 9:30--a little early since we only had a 45-minute drive to get to our next stop at another campground in Olympic National Park. We wanted to charge our battery during our short drive to Fairholme Campground. We got some charge for our battery from being hooked to our pickup, plus more from the solar panels when we were driving in sunny areas. We drove through the town of Forks, Washington, made famous from the Twilight series. Its other claim to fame is that it is the rainiest town in the lower 48 states. After Forks, we drove into the sunshine. It was fun to watch the solar app as it showed the solar panels surge up to 11 amps in sunny areas, and then plummeted to three amps when we drove under a cloud. By the time we pulled into Fairholme Campground, our battery was charged to 76%. That should give us plenty of battery for the two-day stay here in this partially shaded spot.

We were greeted by the nicest stack of firewood that we have ever experienced. But it would do us no good, since the "campfire ban" sign was very prominently displayed in our fire ring.

Before we go on, we have to talk about something we have named "hemlock snow." We had been parked under some giant hemlocks in the national park campgrounds. While the trees were lovely, they shed these inch-long yellow bristles over everything. They coat the picnic table, solar panels, and shoes, so that we tracked them inside the trailer. They were wet and hard to sweep away, and we were very tired of this hemlock snow that drifts down from the trees continually. Okay, rant over.

After we got the trailer set up, we headed out for our first outing in this new section of Olympic National Park. The forecast showed rain for the next few days, and so we were taking advantage of these blue skies to drive to the Spruce Railroad Trailhead that was 4.8 miles from our site.

We unloaded the bikes and headed down this flat rail-to-trail path through the forest.

The tracks were laid for the Spruce railroad to transport the cut spruce trees that were used for lightweight airplane frames for World War I. But the tracks weren't finished until after the war was over. So the railroad saw limited use in transporting trees out of the forest. More recently, the tracks were removed and it made for a great bike route through the woods.

It was a downhill ride through the forest to get to the shores of Olympic National Park's most famous lake.

It was a beautiful bike ride along the shores of Crescent Lake.

We planned to kayak on Crescent Lake before we left our spot at Fairholme Campground. Our camp site was on the Western edge of the lake, and we could say that this lake was bigger than we pictured it.

They ran out of real estate on the shore, so the railroad had to blast a tunnel through the rocks in several places.

Short in length, it was easy to ride to the light at the end of the tunnel.

The east end of Crescent Lake was easier for tourists to access. The more miles we pedaled towards the east, the more people we met on the trail.

We parked our bikes when we got to the most popular destination on the trail. This was a little cove protected from the wind called Devil's Punchbowl. This was a popular place for people to jump from the bridge and the surrounding cliffs to swim in the cove. Most pictures of the punchbowl include the picturesque bridge and the cliffs. But both were covered with the people that had walked there from the east end of the trail. 

To get to Devil's Punchbowl from the bike trail, we had to hike around this tunnel on a narrow trail. This was the second tunnel on the trail. Because it was long and curved there was no light at the end of this tunnel.

So bikers were required to dismount and walk their bikes through the tunnel.

It was a short ride to the eastern trail head where most of the crowd had started their walk. Then we turned around to ride the six miles back to the pickup.

Mark tried a couple selfies on the return trip. One was while he was riding his bike . . .

the other was a less daring shot while taking a bike break.

He was quite good at taking action shots while riding his bike.

You won't see any pictures that Denisa took while riding her bike. She had to focus on pedaling and not riding off the trail into the lake. Besides, on the return trip we were pedaling uphill to make up the 600 feet of elevation that we got to coast down earlier.

On our return bike ride, we started noticing some white caps on the lake as the wind came up. It must have been that wind that blew over a tree onto the road. That tree wasn't in the road a couple hours before when we drove the same road. Mark picked the trunk off the road so we could pass.

We got back to our camp site to see that the solar was working great. We were up to 85% of battery capacity with the bright sunshine. We fixed a meal, then headed out again to take advantage of the nice weather. With no ranger station to ask for advice, we were glad that we had made a list of places we wanted to visit in Olympic National Park. 

We found the trail head to Marymere Falls, and started up the 2.1 mile trail through the giant trees. If you look closely, you can see Denisa inside the burned out tree. These big old trees can survive fires that would kill most trees. Because the trunk and the outside layers were still intact, the water and nutrients can still flow upwards to the high branches that were alive and well.

All of this trail's 350 feet of elevation gain was on the steps at the end. This was a popular trail,  so it was no small task to get a picture of Marymere Falls by ourselves.

We climbed even more steps to get a top view of the waterfall.

We have learned that it was impossible to get a picture that really shows how tall these trees were. But that didn't keep us from continually trying.

Our next stop was the Crescent Lake Lodge on the eastern edge of the lake. We checked out the menu for the lodge restaurant. Based on the prices, we determined that we would be cooking at the trailer while we were here. But we enjoyed using the lodge wifi for a few minutes. We found that we have absolutely no phone signal at our campground (again).

It was also hard to take a picture of the wind, but we confirmed that it was blustery. A sign at the lodge apologized that no boats could be rented this afternoon because of the wind.

So we wouldn't be kayaking after all on this popular blue alpine lake. We had to settle for a lake picture off the boat dock . . .

and from the shore.

We were using all our daylight hours this day before the predicted rain.

We started our third trail of the day--the "Moments in Time Trail". The line of big trees where Denisa was sitting were up off the ground. That's because they started as saplings on top of a fallen tree. Called a "nurse log" the dead tree underneath provides extra nutrients and protection to the new trees, that form a straight line along the log.

We enjoyed the unique trees and the signboards that described the lives of these giants. This was a stump left when it was cut down by hand in the early 1900s. The fallen tree was pulled out of this forest by teams of oxen. Because it was so labor-intensive to remove these trees, that actually allowed some of these big boys to survive the deforestation of the early 1900s.

While the Hoh Rainforest on the coast was famous for its moss-covered trees, we found some inland on the Moments in Time Trail. It was 1.4 miles long, and the sun was going down by the time we finished.

We drove back to the trailer, glad to see that the battery finished the day at 79% capacity. The solar panels produced 27 amp hours today, even with the morning clouds and our site shaded by tall trees. We really enjoyed the freedom of camping in beautiful places that don't have electrical hookups!