Took a wrong turn on the Olympic Peninsula last fall

I was hiking the Hoh River Trail in Washington last October and missed the marker for the Blue Glacier spur. Ended up bushwhacking for 2 hours before I realized my mistake and had to backtrack. Got totally soaked when a surprise rainstorm hit around 3 PM. Anyone else ever mess up a turn on a popular trail and learn the hard way?

2 comments

2 Comments

hayden_martin296d ago

Missed the marker" is a polite way of saying "I decided to test if moss really does only grow on the north side of trees." I did something similar on the same trail a few years back. Thought I was making great time until I ended up staring at a cliff face soaking wet and questioning every life choice that led me there. The rain in the Hoh hits different too. It's not just wet, it's like the sky is personally mad at you for not paying attention.

alice_wilson736d ago

That line about the sky being personally mad at you, yeah, I felt that. I got turned around on a hike in the Smokies once, not the Hoh, but same kind of deal. I mean, I followed a creek thinking it would loop back to the trail, and it just kept getting narrower and steeper until I was basically crawling through rhododendron bushes. @hayden_martin29 you nailed it with that "questioning my life choices" feeling. By the time I found my way back, my boots were full of water and I had a scratch on my cheek that took two weeks to heal. Idk why we do stuff like that, maybe it's just the stubborn part of our brains that thinks we can outsmart a forest.