Sunday September 1, 21.4mi/34.4km

Port Townsend (1000.3/10ft) to Snow Creek Rd (1021.7/748ft) (WA)

I was up early, to finish planning the Olympic coast section of this hike. The tide cycles add quite a bit of complexity! When I was packing up, I saw my new tent stakes (thanks Valerie!) and got excited for camping tonight. They are so nice and non-bent, sharp, and so… functioning!

I walked out of town on the main street for a mile, it’s a nice little town.

And then, as I was walking down the sidewalk near the edge of town, I hear “hey Recon!”. I don’t know anybody who lives in this corner of the state, so I’m quite surprised to hear my name. And even more surprised that the person is Quickham!

We hiked most of the CDT together in 2016, and now he’s working on a trail crew in the North Cascades NP. Holy cow, what a surprise, it’s always great to see trail family!

I had to continue on, as my camping locations and dates are now set, by the Olympic NP permit. The next three hours were on the ODT (Olympic Discovery Trail), and it was a nice rail-to trail.

Some interesting graffiti. Are the Simpsons still on TV?

Quickham had given me a beer for the hike, it was delicious on a hot day of hiking. I believe it’s pronounced “Ran-yay”.

The rail-trail even had tunnels, instead of road crossings.

Then, there was a two hour roadwalk on State highway 20. At least there were farm animals to keep me entertained.

And a reward at the end of the roadwalk, a pub called Fat Smittys. I was excited to have a snack and drink, but they decided to be a cash-only establishment. In 2019. Weird. So, I continued on.

The last hour of the day was on a trail, yay!

I got to my camp spot quite late, at 7:30pm. Sunset around here has now progressed to about 8pm, so I still had daylight.