Tag: Heart Lake

Panoramas

Heart Lake, Olympic National Park

I have been working for the last several months at putting together my hiking memiors. The title is “60 Years of Hiking in the Olympics”, and yes, that is how long I’ve been doing hikes and backpacks into the park. Since I always had a camera with me on those trips, I have spent hours going through all the images and selecting ones to include. One of the surprises was when I realized that there were several that I had taken with the idea that I might “paste them together” to create panoramas. That was difficult to do back in the film days … digital processing eventually made it as easy as pushing a button. These images are ones that I had never taken the time to paste together … so were new surprises for me. The one above is of Heart Lake on the approach to the High Divide. Below is the view of the Upper Hoh River valley from the middle of the High Divide, looking southeast. Mt Olympus is just to the right of the image … I had created the panorama of that one earlier, but missed this combination. (These were taken with an early digital camera … but before there was easy to use software to stitch them together.)

And when (if) the book is available as an eBook for easy download, I will provide the link.

The Upper Hoh River Valley, Olympic National Park
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Water Quality in the High Country

Filtering Water from Heart Lake

Back when I was hiking in the ’60’s and ’70’s, we just drank water out of streams and lakes if they seemed like they were ‘safe’. We looked for running water, especially if it had enough of a drop to it to get aerated. We figured the oxygen cleaned it up. I had friends that kept that philosophy up through the ’90’s. I started filtering water much earlier than that … about the first that backpacking filters became available. These photos are both taken at Heart Lake in the upper Sol Duc valley in the Olympic National Park. The photo below shows how the lake got its name.

The Heart Shape of Heart Lake
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Hike to Heart Lake

Trail to Heart Lake

One of the most heavily hiked trails in the Olympic National Park is the High Divide trail. The High Divide is a section of the ridge between the Sol Duc and Hoh Rivers. Overnight reservation permits are required and get booked up months in advance.

The first section of the High Divide loop follows the Sol Duc River Trail and then heads up along Bridge Creek (which is not easily accessible at most locations). The image above shows the trail climbing from Sol Duc Park to Heart Lake (shown below). I have hiked the trail to Heart Lake several times without continuing along the rest of the High Divide loop. The reasons to do so usually involve weather … or, early in the season) lots of snow left on the ridgeline.

Looking down on Heart Lake
Stream feeding Bridge Creek on the climb to Heart Lake

The trail to Heart Lake climbs up into and through some of the finest samples of mountain meadows in the Olympics. (see above) There are many small streams, keeping the flowers well watered and providing a water source for thirsty hikers.

On the return, it is worth the short side trip to Sol Duc Falls (shown below).

Sol Duc Falls
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