We drove up to Deer Park in Olympic National Park to escape the heat today. We hiked the Grand Ridge Trail from Deer Park to Maiden Peak, about 7.5 miles round trip with an overall gain of 2,100 ft. The first 2+ miles of the trail are through the forest. Then the trail breaks out onto the open ridge. We saw lots of harebells in bloom along the ridge.
Looking back towards Blue Mountain/Deer Park with Mt Baker, Mt Shuksan and Glacier Peak in the far distance beyond the Salish Sea.
zoom of Mt Baker and Mt Shuksan 
zoom of Glacier Peak
Views of nearby peaks as we continued along Grand Ridge
Trail leading to Maiden Peak, our destination for today
Lots of owl clover in bloom
More views of Olympic Peaks to the east
buckwheat along the trail
cinquefoil
paintbrush scattered in the meadow
Paintbrush, harebells and cinquefoil on the scramble up Maiden Peak 
On top of Maiden Peak looking west to Klahhane Ridge and Mount Angels
pano east to south
On our way back, happy hikers!
Far below we could see Ediz Hook in Port Angeles and the Dungeness Spit in Sequim, and Vancouver Island across the Salish Sea in Canada.some of the wildflowers seen along the trail today:
No comments:
Post a Comment