North Cascades, Seattle, Olympic Peninsula

Following Highway 20 and some back country road detours I drove to the North Cascade National Park. Unfortunately the smoke from wildfires in British Columbia was my constant companion. However, what I saw from the North Cascades was really nice and reminded me a lot of the Swiss alps. Even though it was super smoky I had to do at least one hike. I chose the Cascade Pass hike and found a beautiful spot for the night on the Cascade river.

Just like the Cascades, Seattle was covered in a think layer of smoke. The time in Seattle with Rachel was over way too soon and we didn’t do half of the things we planned (also thanks to the smoke…).
After almost 20’000km an oil change was due, the folks at the local Land Rover dealer in Bellevue were very friendly and super helpful, they also managed to organise a new oil filter in a day. Note to myself: Before promising to have an oil filter, check if you really do have one…

After all the oils have been changed I went to the Olympic National Park. This park has everything to offer, from wild beaches, to huge moss covered trees in the rainforest up to glaciers and mountain peaks over 2000 meters above sealevel.
I also got to know a wonderful young family, Jan, Tatj and Zoé at the Rialto Beach parking lot, they just arrived and were waiting for their baby Zoé to wake up. We used to the time to chat and since I already got a place at the near campground, I invited them to camp there too and we spent a great evening. They travel six months through the United States in there Mercedes Sprinter, you can read all about their travels in their blog: out-of-curiosity.jimdoo.com.

One day I got up super early to catch the sunrise at Hurricane Ridge, I can tell you it was totally worth it and the time lapse of it is awesome, more on that on a later post 😉