Written May 2019
Day 2
I got my wish Friday night, as it rained throughout the night, giving us a true rainforest camping experience! The rain pattering down on the tent and surrounding area, gave a nice soothing sound, and put us to sleep very easily and gave us some much needed rest throughout the night! And by the time it was morning, we awoke to a nice bright sky…allowing our tent to dry off fairly easily after a nice shakeout. For breakfast, we had a fairly hearty meal, as we grilled up some hot Italian sausages to have with our hard-boiled eggs from Easter.
After we packed everything all up, we made our way up north about an hr to Fairholm Campground to make sure we get a spot for the night there. Thankfully, there were quite a few spots open, and we were able to get a pretty decent sized one. We didn’t get one overlooking the lake, but that’s fine…we were closer to the bathrooms!
Fairholm Campground
Once we got the tent all set up and ready for the night, we made our way out to Sol Duc Trailhead to start our big hike for the day. Our plan was to hike up to Sol Duc Falls, have our lunch subs, and then continue up to Deer Lake. Overall, it was around 7.5-8 miles.
Sol Duc Trailhead
The hike up to the falls was fairly easily…not much elevation gain and only .8 miles. Along the way, there was a nice creek, flowing over a bed of rocks that provided for nice photos. The Sol Duc Falls themselves were really cool, as the rush of water split off into 3 separate sister falls. We found a spot to climb down to a little, right near the top of the falls – and decided to rest and eat our lunch here, with the sound of rushing water coming down just a few yards away.
Creek on the way to Sol Duc Falls
Sol Duc Falls
After we had enough of the falls, we continued on our hike over to Deer Lake. For some reason, I didn’t read about the elevation gain – I had just assumed that it would be fairly flat since we were going to a lake and were already at the top of the falls. Boy was I wrong – it was a solid uphill climb pretty much the whole way…and the mileage also seemed to be more than the maps or trailhead signs as well. Along the way, we got a few views of Canyon Creek and some falls from above, passed I think 3 different camping areas, and to our surprise, started getting to some snowy areas! After what felt like a long time…but looking back, only about 90 minutes, we finally made it to Deer Lake!
Trail to Deer Lake
The view of Deer Lake, especially with the snow-covered trees was really pretty, and worth the hike up there. We decided to take it in at the edge of the lake, and ate some snacks and just relax for a bit. After our legs felt better and we took enough pictures of ourselves, we decided it was time to make our way back down – much easier!
Deer Lake
On the way back down to Sol Duc Falls
After Sol Duc, we drove back to the campsite for a hot minute, and then made the short drive to the other side of Lake Crescent to see another waterfall out there. Before hiking though, we roamed around the area a little bit. This side of the lake was more built up, with some cabins, a lodge, and some picnic areas – so we were decided to look for a good spot to enjoy sunset later that evening, and settled on a quite area where a couple deer were grazing at the time.
From here, we made our way out to the Marymere Falls trailhead. It was less than a mile to get to the falls, and most of the way was flat, so we decided to jog over until the steep section at the end. It was a really pretty waterfall, and nice and easy to get to. After our fill of picture, we jogged back down, and just relaxed by the lake for awhile to take in the view before dinner and sunset.
Marymere Falls
Relaxing lake-side
For dinner that evening, we set up our grill at the picnic area by the lake, and finished off the Italian sausages that we had from breakfast. Sunset came pretty quickly that evening…one minute the sun was way up in the sky…and then we put our food back and the car and got our chairs…and then the next minute, it was almost below the mountains across the way. It was a pretty view from there though, and nice that we had the spot all to ourselves.
Dinner by the lake
Lake Crescent Sunset
After the sun came down, we made our way back to the campground. We made our fire, and toasted some marshmallows for dessert. I had a tough time keeping the fire going, as I kept playing around with it, but Norina kept overcoming it and brought the fire back to life until we were ready to go to sleep.
Campfire Dessert
Our sleep this evening was a very interesting one. It was tougher for us to get to sleep this time around, because the campers next to us were a little bit loud…but eventually they started to wind down, and we were able to drown out the noise and fall asleep.
Later on in the middle of the night though, I woke up to some sort of loud animal sound. To me, it sounded like some weird cockatoo bird or something making really loud calls. It was really odd and annoying me, because I couldn’t get back to sleep. Then Norina shook me, and asked if I heard it and had any idea what it was. She thought that maybe it was a bear, but I really didn’t think so. But then another sound was being made…a softer, weaker animal call from further away. They kept calling back and forth to each other, with the louder call gradually moving away from us thankfully. Eventually, as the 2 calls seemed to have met each other, they ended. The next morning, we reasoned that it was probably a mother and baby bear trying to find each other, and think we confirmed it with some YouTube bear sound videos.
Jump to:
The Dating Life of Norina and Jonathan 