By Bret Wirta-The Incidental Explorer
Distance: 12 miles – – Time: Two Days
Elevation gain: 2,400 ft.
Bret’s Difficulty Rating: Class 2
August 23rd and 24th, 2011.
Obstruction Point to Grand Pass
Grand Pass in Olympic National Park is aptly named; the view of the headwall from the valley floor is a most grand and beautiful sight. Of course it helped that the weather was perfect, the wildflowers prolific and I was hiking with an old friend. We also enjoyed meeting a couple of unique Olympic National Park animals.
Joel and I began our Olympic hike with a long windy drive up to the Obstruction Point trail head. Thanks to my car and not our feet we were already over 6.000 feet above sea level. The beginning of the hike was an easy stroll along the Lillian Ridge trail. Driving a car to the top of the trail seemed like cheating. But I needn’t have worried; the exertion of hiking from the valley floor to the lip of Grand Pass later that afternoon made up for any easy hiking earlier in the day.
We began hiking at around ten. What was a morning of rain in Port Angeles turned into the bluest sky at the trailhead. We packed away our rain hats and windbreakers soon after we began walking along the treeless Lillian Ridge.
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