High Divide Loop

Last week our family decided to camp at Sol Duc Hot Springs. We decided this place would have some thing for everyone. A pool for my kids and my husband to play in and hiking trails for me. Since my Husband does not hike he watches the kids for me while I hike. It's always nice if the trail head happens to be near a great visitor center with a view (like Hurricane Ridge last week) or near a pool.

I had some dragons to slay at Sol Duc, I had stayed there twice in the past. The first time it was with some dysfunctional relatives and at one point they all stopped speaking to me. There was a lot of bickering and it was not the nicest experience or the most relaxing camping trip I had been on. The swimming was horrible too, the big pool was ice cold and I could not stand to swim in it. I grew up swimming in the Tahuya river so if a pool is too cold for me to swim in it's REALLY cold! The small pool was only luke warm and it was filthy.

The second time I stayed at Sol Duc it was in the dead of winter, my 5 or 6 year old (at the time) daughter and I had the entire campground to ourselves, well almost. We did have to share with a big elk that was always hanging around the bathroom. This would have been a good trip except for the fact that when I tried to leave the campground to go home the transmission in my van broke down. After a few minutes of trying I was able to get the van into drive (I always drove in overdrive) and limp it all the way home to Port Orchard. Sol Duc would have been an awful place to need to get a tow from. It cost me $1,600 for a new rebuilt transmission in that old van and the new transmission only lasted about 25,000 miles before it started acting up again. Back then pretty much every vacation ended with the Van breaking down.

So those were my memories of Sol Duc. I needed to stay and Sol Duc again so I could have some happy memories of the place instead of always thinking about horrible stuff as I drove past the turn of to Sol Duc on 101.

We pulled into the Sol Duc campground and found a suitable campspot on Loop B. My husband was not happy to be so "far" from the lodge and there was some tension about that. As a hiker I did not consider the 1/4 to 1/2 mile walk to the lodge to be an issue at all. But he did have the kids to think of too.

The first thing I did after parking up was walk down to the Ranger Station to try to get some information on local hikes. I was thinking about doing a 20 mile loop that would take me past the spot where I was airlifted when I was 9 weeks pregnant and give me a chance to slay yet another dragon. But I did not know if I was up to the challenge of hiking 20 miles so I was also thinking about an alternate 15 mile loop. I had all kinds of questions for the ranger but the ranger station was not staffed. All I found there was some maps just like the ones I have at home and a box to put your money in.

Then I noticed something that would change everything. There was a sticky note on the wall that said the "Monday Hikers" were staying on my loop in sites 59, 60 and 61. I had hiked with them once before and they hiked too fast for me to keep up but I decided to go talk to them anyway.

I walked back to the campground and told my husband that the Monday Hikers were staying on our loop. His answer was " We just can't get away from them can we?"

We had a good chuckle about that because when we stayed on the Duckabush this winter the Monday Hikers were also there. Our paths seemed to cross often.

With some trepidation I decided to go see what the hikers were up to. As I approached the campsites they were supposed to be in I noticed two women who looked like they might be hikers. I overheard one of them saying the word "trailhead" so I asked if they were with the Monday Hikers. Yes they were! Like like me were trying to find the rest of the Monday Hikers but they had not seen the note on the board. The two women were Linda and Laura, I asked them where the hikers were going and they told me they were doing the 20 mile loop that I had been thinking about doing and they hiked a bit slower then some of the others. That settled it, I decide to hike with them.

I met up with Linda and Laura at 7 am, they were kind enough to give me a ride to the trail head. At the trail head we met up with Shar. We also saw the rest of the group was there but they left without saying a word to us. I knew we would not be seeing them again and frankly I was relieved that I would not have to try to keep up with them. So it was Linda, Laura, Shar and I who hiked together but after we reached Deer lake Jack and his wife Faith caught up with us and we leapfrogged with them for the first 12 miles or so.

The high divide is just as beautiful as I remember it being. I am posting pictures of my previous high divide hike on this blog. Laura took lots of pictures for me but it turns out that the email address I gave her is bad. I think the domain is actually gone or the server is down. I hope I can find another way to get a hold of her because she took pictures of the place I was airlifted from and I want my husband to see them.

I had been on a solo backpacking trip, I started out at Olympic Hot Springs, went over Appleton Pass and was going to do the high divide loop then return to Olympic Hot Springs when things went terribly wrong:


Peninsula Daily News July 25 2003

Woman Airlifted Olympic National Park

- A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter airlifted a pregnant woman Tuesday night from Olympic National Park when the 40 year-old woman began hemorrhaging, the Coast Guard Reported. First Name Last Name, whose hometown was not reported was evacuated from a field near Bogachiel Peak, just south of Seven Lakes Basin, after the Coast Guard received a call from park rangers at about 8:30 p.m.

A medical doctor hiking in the woman's group recommended an immediate evacuation, the Coast Guard reported. The HH-65 Dolphin helicopter landed in the field, at an elevation of 5,000 feet, retrieved Vetter and transported her to Group/Air station Port Angeles, where medics from the Port Angeles Fire Department met the craft and took (my last name)  to Olympic Memorial Hospital, according to the Coast Guard.

The hospital has no record of Last Name and her condition was not available.

They added several years to my age!
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We took our lunch at Bogachiel Peak and enjoyed the views while wondering what the next ten miles had in store for us. I felt good for having just hiked ten miles but I knew I was not going to feel good after hiking another ten. After we left the peak I broke out ahead of the group so I could spend a few minutes alone at the spot I had been airlifted from. It was good to see that spot again and to lay a few ghosts to rest.

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Peninsula Daily News July 27 2003

Airlifted Pregnant Woman OK Port Orchard

-- A pregnant woman who was airlifted from Olympic National Park last week is fine, and so is her unborn child.

First Name Last Name 36, of Port Orford, was evacuated in a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter from High Divide at an elevation of about 5,000 feet, Tuesday evening when she began bleeding.

Last Name's last name and age were incorrectly reported in a story in Friday's Peninsula Daily News.

Last Name who is eight weeks pregnant, was checked by staff at Olympic Memorial Hospital and said Friday she and the unborn child are fine.

Last Name, a seasoned hiker, was four days into a back-country trek and was hiking alone when she reached her campsite Tuesday night and began bleeding.

"I thought I was having a miscarriage," she said.

Other hikers staying at the campground went down the trail and contacted the Park Service for help, while a doctor on the trail assisted her and recommended she be evacuated, she said.

She does not know who the doctor was, she said.

"I'd like to thank that doctor and everyone who helped me," Last Name said.

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After leaving the peak we hike along the ridge of the high divide, past my airlift spot and then down to heart lake. We took our last long break at Heart Lake. Jack, Faith and Shar caught up to us at Heart lake but we left them there and did not see them again on the trail. I wanted to swim in Heart Lake but it was not as warm as I remember.

From our vantage point at Heart Lake we saw not one but two bears up on the hillside. So once again I SAW A BEAR! But it was not as exciting as on my last hike since these bears were so far away. We also saw some elk on the hill side.

After leaving Heart Lake the trail drops down through Sol Duc park and then into the gloom of the virgin forest along the banks of the Sol Duc river. Down in the gloomy forest we passed a man who told us that we only had 4 miles left to go.

Laura liked the sound of that and she took the lead and we started hiking much faster. But the man was wrong. We really had 5 or more miles left to go. The last 3 miles were the longest and we were more then ready to get finish our hike and go soak in the hot springs.

11 hours after we started our hike we made it back out to the trail head. Congratulations and high fives all around and off to the hot springs for a much deserved soak.

It was good for me to go back and complete this loop and I feel proud to have done a 20 mile day hike. My previous mileage record was 19 miles but that was several years ago.

But then again it looks like this was not a 20 mile hike. Day Hike! by Searbury Blair, Jr. states that this hike is 18.8 miles round trip with 3,500 elevation gain. Interestingly this book gives the trail description going counter-clock-wise (the direction we went) while most other guides give the description clock-wise.

This hike was a whopping 26 on the hike difficulty calculator.

I really enjoyed hiking with Laura and Linda with their company the miles seemed fly by.

Now when I drive by Sol Duc I will have happy memories to think of.