Backpacking to The Enchanted Valley, Olympic National Park, Washington ~ Day 3

The next day we had planned to do some hiking from the valley, but first, Suzanne got a better picture of our awesome campsite....

After breakfast as we were getting ready, the temperature suddenly dropped, and a fog rolled in along with some dark clouds.  We thought, “Oh shit,” and debated whether to go on our planned hike, hang out, or head out. We waited a bit and then suddenly everything cleared and it was sunny skies once again – how strange……

So we hit the trail at 9:10am – it was quite cool and enjoyable – heading towards the Anderson Pass/O’Neill pass junction – about 3.2 miles from the valley floor.

Some of the hike was forested…..

Some was open….

 

We had nice views......

We passed an ice cave….

And finally towards the junction by a waterfall….where we stopped for a snack before heading back to the valley.

We passed a US Geological Survey Benchmark on the way. (Well, we passed it on the way out as well, but did not notice it until we were heading back.) 

Arriving back to our campsite at 1:40pm where we had lunch, did some laundry, played in the water some more, people watched (there were more people here now than our first night, but still not a ton), looked for bears, ate dinner, read, soaked our feet......