the peninsula
a photo essay from the last week or so
in my head, washington state is this magical place where mountains scrape the sky, and waterfalls cascade from summit to sea, and wildflowers bloom like wonderland. in my head living in washington will look like hiking all the time in the mountains, and moody mornings by the sea, steaming cups of tea by a fireplace and a world bright as pieces of candy, a life you could taste on your tongue.
in reality, i’ll make it look like all of those things online, right here. the experience itself is always just… life? just living? just wherever you go there you are? I’ve had a lot of incredible experiences and i definitely don’t take them for granted, but it is always far more normal in the moment i am experiencing them then when i recount it here.
so while the past few weeks have been orcas, sun, and salt, it had also been almost three months since I left the island and I’d been working for almost three weeks straight. That’s a lot of island time.
i have limited cell service and wifi on san juan island, and had started to feel a little like a hamster on a wheel.
in a way, i had forgotten that a world outside of san juan island exists.
(if you’re wondering why i’m not using capitals it is because i currently have a pinky injury and it hurts to hit the shift key).
read some extremely honest reflections on work as a kayak guide here
I think that happens sometimes, when you live in an isolated (or rather insular?) place. I felt that way in Armenia, like the world outside of Armenia didn’t exist in even the same universe. Everything but the version of life you can see in front of you feels imaginary.
Right now as i’m writing this I’m at the laundromat back on the island. i’m listening to a man who works here complain loudly to us, the people gathered in the crowded laundromat, about his job. the floors are messy, someone skipped cleaning them. there’s too many people here, someone has put a basket in his way. one of the dryers isn’t working. did you know that miss?, he says to me.
on the ferry back from port townsend the worker pointed our car forward, then loudly shouted and stamped his foot “NOT there”. i ask service industry workers how they’re doing, how’s the day, and they answer me honestly— terrible.
everyone in every coastal town seems to be in a foul mood.
at work for me too, we’re all snapping at each other here and there. the summer is almost over but it isn’t yet. we’ve all been working on end. here on the island it was a slow start with barely enough work, then all the sudden far too much.
the thing about the service industry is you get tired of serving if you are asked for too much of it. when it reaches a point where it feels like you are neglecting yourself to service others, it becomes hard to not be “that asshole” in the ferry line.
and it’s hard, because when everyone is exhausted collectively things start to fall through the cracks, and it’s easier to get frustrated at each other. it’s been a really, really long summer.
(update! the man who seemed to be having a very bad day left and everyone who was in the laundromat was then very friendly in helping me figure out which of the dryers was the broken one, as he did not inform me).
Andy & I stayed for a few days in Port Angeles, a town outside of Olympic National Park. Mostly, we enjoyed the absolute luxury that was staying in a hotel room, eating out, buying new socks, and listening to podcasts while we explored aimlessly.
It was kind of our first real vacation together ever. Usually when we travel it’s to visit family, or a 70-day paddle trip, not to have fun and relax. That, and we honestly just haven’t had enough money to travel just for us before.
It’s also been a while since i was able to appreciate a place like a tourist, not like a guide or expedition paddler. we did the tourist-y hikes, and visited museums, and read all the info signs.
The coolest thing we saw of the whole trip was the nursery log in the Hoh rainforest (pictured above). Here you can clearly see where a fallen tree became the home for these now adult trees. The roots wrap around what was once a fallen tree, outlining the place it laid and decayed like a shadow of life.
I think it’s incredible, the way we can read the forest if we know what to look for.
I’ve spent all summer on the ocean, but this was my first trip out to the open Pacific. The open coast is beautiful, and overwhelming in different ways than I expected—
I expected it to feel intimidating, and huge. Instead it felt alive and incredible. I’ve spent a lot of years paddling, and I think built up the open Pacific in my head is some wild beast that I am an unfit paddler for. I tend to undersell my own paddling skills and experience. More often than not, I feel like a silly little girl. I’m trying to get better about that.
The next day we went for a little paddle on the coast. It was pretty light swell, but the wildfire smoke was super thick and I ended up with a huge headache just an hour in and we landed a little earlier than we wanted.
We went for a quick hike out to Cape Flattery and I badly wished I was feeling better— the caves looked incredible and the water was perfect. We also visited the Makah Cultural Center to pickup our recreation passes and check out the museum— learning a lot of the archeological and Indigenous history of the area definitely added to the experience of hiking Cape Flattery.
I had a headache for the rest of the day and went to bed early, which was fine too.
Oh! We also signed a lease for the winter that night! We’ll be staying in Washington over the winter. I’m really excited to try out Washington for a little while! I have almost no friends in washington so reach out if you’re looking for a hiking or paddling buddy!
The next day we got up early to drive up Hurricane Ridge. This part of the park has limited visitor capacity, so we set alarms for 7am.
We hiked the three-mile, paved Hurricane Hill hike. We did see an Olympic Marmot, and that was very exciting. For the most part, we were smoked in that day, and didn’t experience sweeping views. Still, it was really nice to be in the mountains.
Olympic is beautiful, but I think ultimately a park best experienced by a multi-night backcountry trek. So much of the park is wilderness, and it felt like we really just scratched the surface. Which was fine— we’ve gotten plenty of wilderness adventuring in in the past few years. Sometimes a few popular day hikes is all you need.
I think if/when we visit Olympic again we’ll shot for a multi-day open coast paddling trip. That would definitely be the next step in building up our sea kayak resumes. Alternately, backpacking a few days in would be a really incredible trip.
After getting back from the Peninsula, I launched immediately into another trip. It was definitely a challenge, with a solid day and a half of storms without a single 30 minutes passing without lightning. Everyone was wet, and cold, and the paddling part of the trip was cut short.
The good news is that we got to see orcas, twice. Unfortunately the cold and wet conditions along with the constant lightning and downpours made the trip a little bit of a challenge moral wise, especially as the San Juans are known for days of sun on end.
When the sun finally broke through and lit the whole island peachy orange it felt like a movie. I am extremely grateful to be writing this from a dry, inside place, and I think I am really going to appreciate the heck out of the place we’ve rented for the winter.
more things to read from recently…
this post was a little more disjointed and less smooth than I wanted it to be, but I’m back to working pretty constantly for the next few weeks; forgive me my typos.
For September, I’ve got a string of day trips lined up, my sister is visiting and we’re headed to the Cascades, then headed back to the San Juans for a little. After that, I’ll either have more work to do or Andy & I will head out into the islands for a personal trip for a little while. At the end of the month, we move into a new apartment then head out to Minnesota for a visit, then back to the coast for the winter.
