I’m back from ten days in Washington State. I set the girls up in an Airbnb in Tacoma then headed into the wild with my long-time friends for a six-day backcountry adventure. We hiked 36.2 miles along the Hoh River Trail to the Blue Glacier and back, which is in the Olympic National Park. I’ve been to Seattle a bunch and have explored the San Juans by sailboat (see here and here), but this was my first trip to the Olympic National Park.

This trip had multiple milestones for me:

• Longest total miles in a single trip. Total altitude was pretty tame, although I don’t have the specifics.
• First time using a hammock tent. Luckily, there were plenty of trees at every campsite!
• First time using trekking poles. Wow, total game-changer!
• First backcountry trip where I didn’t get lost. (The time-I-got-lost-on-Mt.-Rainier story is a crowd favorite. I need to post it at some point).

We came back with the same number of folks we started with, and all reasonably healthy, but tired. I remember at the end of the trailhead telling the team I felt like I could do another week. Then, once I sat around a bit, the fatigue caught up with me and I’m still recovering.

The glacier was beautiful, though, and I really enjoyed that focused time with my friends.

If you want more details, check out:

• A quick overview as to why this trip was special to us
• My day-to-day trail notes
• My equipment list
• My Flickr album