The LaCrosse Pass Trail connects the West Fork of the Dosewallips River Trail with the Duckabush River Trail within the Olympic National Park. The trail doesn’t get a lot of traffic, since it is a couple days hiking in to get to either end. Jeff and I were camped down on the W Fork Dosewallips and hiked to the pass on a dayhike. When we had a chance to hike the side from the Duckabush up to the pass, the trail had a section washed out and it was impassable (it has since been repaired).
I was walking the beach on Marrowstone Island (SE of Port Townsend) and noticed the strange-ish clouds overhead with Mt Baker in the distance. Not particulary weird clouds. Just a little funny looking. Fargo clouds. (Movie reference)
My previous post talked about hiking and having clouds move in … this one covers the other scenario, where you start the hike in clouds and hike up out of them (or have them burn off while you are hiking). This is the same location as the previous post, Mt Ellinor in the Southeast corner of the Olympic Mountains (outside the park).
One of the facts of hiking in the Olympic Mountains is that the weather can change very quickly due to its proximity to the Pacific. I was climbing (more of a hike than a climb, really) Mt Ellinor in November one year and it started out as a beautiful fall day. When I started my descent, I realized that clouds were coming in. I wasn’t worried since the trail was clearly marked with lots of footprints in the snow, and I had climbed Ellinor several times. But the clouds moving in certainly made it more interesting photographically.
This is the view looking south from Port Townsend. There were a number of storms lined up hitting the Pacific Northwest coast one after the other and this was a break in the action.