Olympic NP - Staircase area

After three and a half days resting and relaxing with old friends from Omaha, who are now living in the Federal Way area of Seattle, I finally stocked up on some fresh groceries and headed towards Olympic NP.  The plan is to travel the park in a counter clockwise direction and hit the most scenic spots along the way.  I did a little research while in town, so I knew I wanted to try an extremely strenuous hike that included a summit in the Staircase area (SE portion of the park). 

The drive was nice (except the 5 miles of gravel) out to the campsite.  The area has a lot of old growth forest and the extreamly large sizes of the Douglas firs and red cedars was really amazing.  I did an easy 5 mile hike just to get my legs and feet woken up and ready to go for the summit hike. 

There was a downed old cedar tree that was HUGE!  The center was hollowed out and it was fun to explore and wonder how old the tree had been when it fell, an how many years it had been there.  It was a nice creekside hike and there was a ton of Spanish moss in the trees.  Made for some interesting pictures when the sun shown through it, so took lots of pictures.  Nice relaxing explore day for my first day in Olympic.

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