Day 5, June 6

 Day 5: June 6 

Note: skip to subheadings if you’re looking for specific info about conditions. 

With many long or intense outdoor experiences I’ve had in the past, I’ve tended to look back more favorably on them than they probably deserved at the time. Backpacking in particular can be brutal and I’ve done a lot of it. It’s classic Type Two fun: it’s hard and much of it sucks, but you later relish in those experiences and laugh and savor them. 

This trip so far is precisely the opposite. I actually can’t believe I’m having this much fun. I feel like I actually shouldn’t be having any fun at all under the present circumstances. 

Olympic is known for its temperate rain forest ecosystem, which is a relative rarity in the world. It’s the wettest locale in the lower 48 states. 

I am getting the full Olympic experience.

At Bogachiel I set my tent up in the rain. It poured all night and I packed it up in the rain in the morning. I’d let myself sleep in and found an utter deluge when I peaked my head through my vestibule. The ranger at the state park, Keith, is from nearby Forks. He looked around in the downpour and remarked that, oftentimes around there, it’s not really raining. There’s just such extreme humidity that water seems suspended in the thick undergrowth somewhere between evaporation and condensation. “Now this,” he said, probing the downpour with a finger, “this is rain.”

I attempted briefly to hitchhike and then pedaled up the road and just decided to ride the five miles into Forks. I arrived there as perhaps the wettest individual on land in all of Washington. And it didn’t really bother me. I was cold but immediately snagged a booth at In Place. This is my favorite kind of restaurant: a no-frill diner, pretty cheap but not too cheap, with cigarette-stained waitresses that bark and you and endlessly refill your coffee. I had a massive breakfast that I ate concerningly fast and then took advantage of the first WiFi I’d had in days, downloading some literature and podcast episodes. I ate and sat there catching up on the news and eventually the waitresses eventually forgot about me. It poured outside. I enjoyed the warm diner and the coffee they keep pouring me. I sat there a long time. Eventually I knew it was time to come back to reality. I saddled up and rode half a mile back down the road to a big grocery store that also had an outdoor store in there. 

Here I made the best purchase so far this trip: A pair of rain pants and a pair of water shoes. That’s right folks. If you drove 101 between Sappho and Forks two days ago you saw a blond man on a bike pedaling in full rain gear and water shoes. The next day I wore my regular shoes, which were very damp, and wore dog-bags as improvised booties. They worked OK. 

I rode to Bear Creek, a DNR site with no water but bathrooms. A really chill site that is practically empty. A short trail takes you through the mist to the Sol Duc River. It’s in a Douglas Fir grove and run by the state but they’re not even asking for money here right now and there’s no camphost. I purchased a small bottle of whisky in Forks that facilitated my transition from wet clothes to went tent. I had to mop up the floor of the tent with a damp camp towel and a sacrificial Led Zeppelin t-shirt, but it worked. 

Cycling

From Forks to Bear Creek campground 101 is chill as fuck. Enormous shoulders and pretty flat. I really loved this, even in the rain. It’s so much better than the logging corridor between Quinault and Aberdeen. If you buy whisky and a diner breakfast in Forks it feels especially good to ride in the rain here.

Encounters

An old man volunteers at Bogachiel to pick up trash from the sites. Somehow locals around Forks move about this aquarian environment and don’t appear drenched like the rest of us, as if they’re protected by halos that bend the rain around the crown of their heads, some natural umbrella. It was 9 am and I was already soaked to the bone as I packed up camp. He walked toward me, trash picker in hand. 

“I have to warn you about his site,” he said seriously. “There’s a giant rabbit that lives there in that hedge.”

And later:

“One time I was camping in Yellowstone and I left my tent, you know, barely open. There were six chipmunks in there when I got back.” He leaned in and whispered. “And they wanted to kick my ass.”

Musings 

I wonder how long it takes for trenchfoot to set in