Mt. Townsend

We were visiting my dad up in Port Angeles. We wanted to get out for a hike while we were there. I wanted to do the High Divide trail up above Sol Duc, but Jacqueline did not want to hike that far. My dad recommended Mt. Townsend, as he knew the mountain well since that is the place he scattered the ashes of one of his best friends, so we gave that a shot. It was not as long of a distance, but still a lot of elevation change. We got a good early start in the morning and were following our GPS. Unfortunately, the GPS took us on the wrong route. We ended up on a Forest Service road that dead ended. We had no choice but to backtrack to the 101 and take an alternative route that was actually the correct way to get to the trailhead. Since we did not have a map and did not know the area, we were really relying on the GPS to get us to the trailhead. 

The weird thing about it was that the actual correct directions to the trailhead were quite easy, we just had to travel on the 101 a lot further than we did. We chocked it up to a lost couple of hours and because of it, we didn't get our hike started until 11 AM. We parked at the lower trailhead. We were recommended to do this by one of the Forest Service employees at the ranger station that Jacqueline needed to stop at to go to the bathroom. This was strange because we were the only ones parked at this trailhead. This made Jacqueline a little bit grumpy because she wanted the hike to be shorter. I didn't think the little extra elevation would be a big deal. It took us by a trail shelter and a mostly dried up lake. The elevation change wasn't too much and the kids enjoyed munching on the huckleberries along the way.

We arrived at the upper trailhead where there was a bathroom and a big parking lot. The parking was completely full, so maybe it was a good choice to go to the lower trailhead. From here, the trail climbed steeply. It was a good workout for all of us except Conrad. He was still able to have a conversation while hiking uphill with very steep grades. I participated in most of it with him, but other times I was just dealing with the heat and climb. Jacqueline was not very happy with me for taking them on this hike and was even more grumpy when the trail started to open up more. To me, we were seeing beautiful meadows filled with wildflowers. For her, she was seeing potential places to go slip sliding away.

The kids handled the heights really well and honestly to me, every time it looked like it was going to get to a drop off, there was a switchback that took us up the hill. It was a wonderfully constructed trail and I just marveled at the workmanship involved in building this track up Mt. Townsend. We continued pushing on and eventually made our way up to the ridge. Here the views were spectacular. The top did not seem so far away and we could see a group of people having a break up on top. We continued on with Jacqueline in the rear. Eventually we all made it to the top and I just happened to have a fourth place ribbon from one of my races in my backpack. I gave that to Jacqueline for being the fourth person to climb the mountain out of our group of four and that lightened the mood.

From there on out, we seemed to all enjoy the hike. We even all had patience with Jacqueline as she worked herself up to be very nervous going down the switchbacks. The kids did fantastic as they have both become rather skilled at figuring out how to manage the risks. The other impressive thing about the kids was really just how great of shape that they were all in. The hike seemed like no big deal when we were climbing 3400 feet over 5 miles. They had been on a running program for cross country and I really think that this running program was working as they both seemed to handle this challenging hike with ease. We continued down eating as many huckleberries as we could. Conrad was the most excited about the huckleberries and often shared them with us.

Overall, it ended up being just around 10 miles. We did it in fairly good time, but were thwarted a bit by the driving directions. This meant that we were slowed down for what Zyla really wanted to do with the day and that was to get out to Glass Beach to find beach glass. We were supposed to meet my dad and his wife there.

By the time we made it, the tide was coming in and there was not too much beach glass to be found. We still got ourselves a pocket full and it made Zyla happy that we at least made the effort. Hopefully she will actually use the beach glass to make something pretty that we can all enjoy.