Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

A few weeks ago, while weather in Seattle was waxing hot and hotter, I nabbed my backpacking pal Zeke and headed to the WA coast to hike the Ozette Triangle, with extras. It's peak season for backpacking, but by going midweek we were able to nab a permit for a nearly empty camping area at the mouth of the Ozette River (adding about 5 miles to make a two-day trip of just under 14 miles. I started early from my home in Seattle, choosing to drive around via Tacoma rather than take the ferry across the Sound (total time isn't much different, and the gaps between ferries were inconvenient).  Zeke brought Second Breakfast (some tasty home-made "egg mcmuffins" with bacon, a total treat for me), and we were ready to hike by half past 11.  Crossing the Ozette River where it leaves Ozette Lake. The river meanders a lot to cover less than 2 linear miles and drop about 150' to the ocean. Our trail cut a (comparatively) straight line through the forest instead, though I think ...

True confessions time: I went for a hike yesterday instead of working on my photos and writing this post. So the weekend post is going up mid-day on Saturday. I also have a problem: a quick skim through my photos from the West Coast Trail (a mere 4-day trip and less than half the whole trail) had me selecting over 80 photos I want to share. I had to trim that down a LOT.   I did this hike in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on the west coast Vancouver Island July 18-21 with  my friend Sumi. She handled the logistics of permits and transportation--a non-trivial effort for which I am very grateful! Our hike was intended to be 2 night and 3 days, but because they warn that the trail can have issues--washouts, high water, inconvenient tides--we got the permit for 3 nights. By the end of the first day we had figured out two things: miles on this trail are a lot longer than on other trails, and we wanted to stay out there as long as we could. That led to an easy decision to sho...