Friday 9-22-23 Hoh River Trail Hike & Camping

 

Sunny day

  We did not have internet access for a couple of days so you might have missed yesterdays post. I posted it last night.

 Friday 9/22 

I crawled out of bed at 7:00. It was a little cold in the Minnie. Larry had been up for an hour and had the Wave3 heater on. I turned on the oven to heat it up to bake cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

After breakfast we went on a 6.75 mile hike on the Hoh River Trail. The Hoh River trail is 17.5 miles one way. We hiked it to Tom Creek, which was 2.9 miles. The trail was very nice and challenging. Most of the trail was flat but we did have to climb up a couple of steep hills. The trail was hard packed with rocks and huge tree roots. We crossed over a creek. The trail took you through the rainforest with giant pine trees and a lot of ferns and other beautiful green growth. The Hoh River ran by the trail and at times you could see it. We saw a couple of waterfalls, Mineral Creek Falls were wonderful, the creek it fed into went into the Hoh river. We crossed mineral creek via a bridge. About 1/4 mile further along was Tom Creek Falls, it was smaller and we had to look through the trees to see it.

On our way to the falls we saw four backpackers hiking out. On the way back we saw a lot more hikers and backpackers. When we got to the trail at our campground we saw three deer (two does and a fawn). The hike was very beautiful and peaceful.

One of the giant trees

Hoh River from the trail

 

Mineral Creek Falls

Mineral Creek

On average the Hoh Rainforest gets 12 feet of rain per year (our average at home is 3 feet).  On the way back to our campsite we stopped by the visitor center to take a picture of a display on how much rain the Hoh Rainforest normally gets each month. One of the gauges shows you where they are this year. It looks like they are about 16“ below normal. The gauge is at the amount they get by May. This is very interesting I’m glad we didn’t visit in October because they normally get 13“ of rain.

Rain gauge of the Rainforest

When we got back to the Minnie our neighbors from Germany were at our picnic table. The grandmother and daughter were making headbands and jewelry. The father and mother had to go to town because the father had a sore throat. Grandma was entertaining the daughter. We visited with them a little bit. They were at our table because it was in the sun and their table was in the shade and it was cold.

We rested a bit and then had lunch. After lunch we setup the solar panels to charge up the lead acid battery. We spent the rest of the day relaxing in the Minnie and reading a book. We both finished our books. I finished, What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriart, it was very good and cute. It was about a lady, who fell off her spinning bike and lost her memory of the last 10 years of her life.

I didn’t have to do any walking around the campground because I had done 18,500 steps. This kept me in 1st place in my group. We had a super day. 

Relaxing with a good book