Day 2: Olympic National Park, Washington

Last night we stayed at the best campsite I have ever been to, it was settled in a small flat areas right next to a stream, with crystal clear water and surrounded by trees. We spent the morning trying to find our oatmeal so we could have breakfast but we were never able to find it. We left the Sol Duc campground and headed back towards Olympic National Park. We stopped at a small fishing village in the Quileute Reservation and discussed salmon fishing in the region. I was slightly shocked when we drove through the village, the idea I had in my head about a Native American reservation was nothing like what we were seeing. The area was clearly poverty stricken, all the homes were dilapidated and yards were unkempt, there were abandoned vehicles and garbage littering the yards, and there was not a soul in sight. We learned how the natives are allowed to harvest for salmon year round while other areas outside the reservation have to abide by strict regulations and fishing seasons. The native villages are allowed this because they can say that the salmon are important for food and religious practices in the region and its part of their traditions that they have had for hundreds of years. Its odd though because these natives use the same technology as other modern fisherman, using boats, GPS, fish finders, and huge nets to harvest thousands of salmon, this doesn't sounds very traditional to me. This lack of regulation does nothing to help the salmon fisheries, there is already too many fisherman and too many boats out salmon fishing and it is making it a struggle for salmon populations to come back.

We arrived at Beach 1 in Olympic national park where we hiked through the stunning rain-forest, it is incredible just how green these trees are here, there was so much plant life growing in the area you could not see the ground off the path. We made our way down the muddy hills and punched through some ferns and we made our way onto the beach. The view was stunning with immense cliffs jutting out from the ocean covered in mist, they looked like giants. The beach had driftwood strewn across it and not drift wood like we find in new jersey, I'm talking about freaking trees here. Reluctantly we hiked out of the beach and back to our vans to get ready for the next part of the day, a hike in the mountains on the Hurricane Ridge. The drive up to our hiking site was quite un-nerving, thousand foot drops right off the mountain with few spots having guard rails, it felt like we were driving forever to get up this mountain. At the top we had lunch at the visitor center, got some souvenirs and went for the hike. On our hike we noticed some trees on an adjacent mountain that looked liked they were dead from a fire perhaps. Turns out that it was a whole forest that had been killed by pine beetles. We had read about pine beetles and the destruction they are bringing to Americas forests in the book "The Dying of the Trees: A Pandemic in Americas Forests". With global temperatures rising, the beetles are moving north where the winters are no longer cold enough to kill the insects. After the mountain hike we headed towards our hotel for the night near Seattle. 

We checked in, unloaded our things and made a quick run for dinner. Me and some of the other dudes went and tried out Jack in the Box for the first time, their tacos are deep fried, so naturally after eating 5 of them we all felt like crap on our walk back. We finished up the day with watching the documentary "Damnation" which was about dam removal and focused on the Elwha dam which we visited the day before. The Elwha River dam decomission was the largest in U.S. history and costs roughly $370 million to take down, all in an effort to restore the river ecosystem and bring back native salmon fisheries. The local natives celebrated the dams removal as the site was sacred to them and this year data has shown a 40% increase in salmon during salmon runs than in years previous. This data makes researchers hopeful that that salmon runs could be restored in other areas if old and outdated dams on other streams are removed. The Elwha River Restoration project hopes to serve as a model for future projects of this scale.