July 28th 2023

Deer Park Trailhead –> Three Forks Trail

2 miles +26 ft -1322 ft

Finally. I am here. I feel like it took a LOT to get here. A LOT of things. Life. Time. Preparation. Driving. Waiting. Even so, it feels like I am here at the right time. At least I am choosing to look at it that way. I am very grateful. Tonight is the official “start” of my three months of dirtbag life. Well, I have been dirtbagging it already for a week, sleeping many nights in my car, going for trail runs in beautiful places and eating car camp meals, interspersed with visits with friends, a few really good meals, a few glasses of wine, maybe a couple mediocre cups of coffee and perhaps a day of skiing thrown in there too. And SUP’ing. But tonight feels like my journey is finally underway.

I have so much planned yet right in this moment I feel really tired. Not overwhelmed, just tired. Of course I started my period this morning, so it’s mainly that. Last night I spontaneously went for an 11.5 mile run along the Dungeness Spit in the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. I started the run at 7:15pm and got back in the dark at 9:30. It was amazing and I felt really surprised and grateful that my body held up really well. Nothing hurt! Then, I got a shower at the campground where I was parked, ate a very late dinner and crashed for nearly 9 hours without waking once. Ha! But now I am bleeding and everything hurts and I am tired and feel woozy. But such is life, I got myself here and I am really excited for what lies ahead.

I have been studying the maps for Olympic National Park for months. My original idea was to hike the Pacific Northwest Trail, then that shrank to Sections 9 and 10 of the PNT, which has now evolved into three separate hikes on the Olympic Peninsula.

1.) A 44 mile loop starting here at Deer Park camp, heading down the Three Forks Trail to Gray Wolf Creek and then Gray Wolf Pass to the Dosewallips River and Dose Meadows. From there I will hang a steep right, headed North up to Lost Pass and Cameron Pass/Cameron Basin. After a long drop to Cameron Creek I will then climb up to Grand Pass and camp at the pass on my third night. My final day will follow the trail past Badger Valley and connect to Obstruction Peak TH at the end of that road. The following 8 miles will fall on the PNT Alt, along Deer Ridge, leading me back to my car. So that’s hike #1.

It is a lot shorter of a loop than I had originally dreamed up, but there were some road closures that disallowed me to make my bigger loop idea possible, thus I spent most of the morning coming up with an alternate. This is what I decided upon.

#2.) Hike through the Hoh Rainforest up to Glacier Meadows which sits at the base of Blue Glacier on Mt. Olympus. I really wanted to see both of these areas and it is not possible to do a loop hike here, so this will be a 20 mile each way out-and-back in two days. I think it will be wonderful.

#3.) The third leg of my ONP adventures will come next month, as I plan to return mid August and travel along the Olympic Coast for about 100 miles. I am still figuring out the logistics for that, and in between this week and that hike, I will be running an Ultra Marathon around Mt. St. Helens on August 5th and following that a 6 day hike around Mt.Rainier on the Wonderland Trail with Rockin’, so please stay tuned!

That’s it for now, it is 10:26pm and I need to shut the eyes, rest the brain and regenerate my energy so I can fully take in all the beauty there is to see, touch & feel here, to say I am excited is an understatement.

If you don’t already follow me on social media, please consider it, as my itinerary is going to keep me quite busy so it will be faster to post on social with my progress than the fully detailed blogs, however I’m going to try my best to get them out! Instagram & Facebook are both: @milissajayn. Thanks for following along!