Exploring the Southeast Corner of the Olympic Peninsula

My friend Chris sent me a message: “Want to go riding?” Of course! So we met in Hoodsport Sunday morning for a little back roads exploration on the Peninsula. Chris knows this area well, whereas I don’t know anything about it. It was fun to check out various roads and be surprised if they were gated, dead-ended or actually went through to another road. There’s not a lot of story to today, but there are a lot of pictures.

October 28, 2007
Total Miles: 254 miles, 1 day
Seattle, WA to Olympic Peninsula

The view from the morning ferry ride

Nearing Southworth on the Peninsula

The sky begins to open up as I approach the Hood Canal

Looking down from the High Steel Bridge

Nearby waterfall, looking down from the bridge

Today’s heroes

The third hero of the day (that’s Chris)

A pleasant view early in the day

Chris checks out a side road

This is the side road *I* decided to check out

And look where it got us

Lake Cushman in the distance

There were hunters everywhere today!

Chris returning from a dead-end

Ahhh – now this is what I like!

Miles and miles of this

Another view of the Pacific Northwest – see Mt Rainier?

Here, I’ve zoomed in between the two trees – see it now?

Near Brown Creek campground

An unfortunately short loop off the main road

Main FS 23 – high speed!

Random, dead-end road that was worth exploring

Views along the road

And the road itself

Did I mention the great views?

And the great roads?

Looking down at the road we came up on

There was lots of loose gravel along here

The lighting was bad for photos, but the scenery went on forever

Riding on marbles!

The end of one of the connecting roads

*sigh*

Lake Wynoochee

Wynoochee Dam

Mossy spillway

We were the only dam visitors

The sunlight fades as we head back towards pavement

Logging operations in full swing

Pavement worth coming off the dirt for

Chris heads home