2018 Grand Valley Olympic National Park

Solo backpack to Grand Valley and Grand Pass

July 17, 2018

Backpacking solo, not Nancy’s favorite activity for me, but its certainly mine. 70 years ago, I first spent a night in my own tent and slept in jammies with the owls overhead. It stuck.

This hike started high, 6125′ at the Obstruction Point Trailhead, north side of Olympic National Park. Directions to trailhead: from Port Angeles, drive 17 miles to Hurricane Ridge, then turn left and drive 8 miles east to Obstruction Point trailhead. You enter Olympic National Park at mile 5 on the Hurricane Ridge Road. From the trailhead, it’s a glorious ridge walk , and then the trail plunges down into Grand Valley where it passes a chain of lakes. I pitched my tent at Moose Lake, 5045′, the middle of three stairstep lakes. I had been here a decade before with Nancy, but this time I endured trail- loneliness without her, but a heightened sense of awareness I only find with solitude, a spiritual pleasure unmatched when other hikers are with me.

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