Day 18. Olympic National Park - our new favorite!

Once again, we were up and off early doors. As Tom always says - it takes hard work to have a good time. Our first destination of the day was into Olympic National Park and up to Hurricane Ridge. We can never be prepared for the sites that greet us when we head up these roads!

 Above is Mount Olympus, with the Blue Glacier on the left and Mount Carrie and her ringlet of glaciers on the right.

 A zoomed view of Mount Olympus

This was the view behind us:

You can just make out the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Mountain Range of British Columbia through the sea mist.

Of course today was a special day, the day of the solar eclipse. Inexplicably we found ourselves without the special viewers needed and so had to poach on other folks set ups. We got some pretty good views.

 And had the added bonus of seeing some pretty neat effects of the eclipsed sun shadows through the pine tree needles.

We got some pretty good shots of the fauna:

 Black tailed deer - a subspecies of mule deer

And of the flora:

Scottish Bluebell

After enjoying a fairly strenuous hike up to the top of the ridge, we made our way down to Crescent Lake - another special place. And of course it was time to stop for our picnic!

Then another hike along a lovely wooded trail:

To Marymere Falls, a 90ft cascade and well worth the slightly strenuous hike to get there:

Finally it was time to turn back to our cottage:

Another fantastic day - we feel very lucky!