Welcome to my personal experiences that I gathered during my five days of travel through the Olympic National Park visiting the Elwha Valley. In my normal life, I am a teacher at Lake Stevens High School in Lake Stevens, Washington. I teach various information technology courses such as Cisco Systems and Digital Design. I willingly signed up for the WTA grant and didn't quite realize what I was getting myself into, as I soon discovered. Below are some journal entries that I recorded during my trail hiking that may give some insight as to how I was progressing during my first wilderness adventure hike.

Day One: Weather is good. Everyone says it will rain for sure, but no rain yet. We are lucky. Forest is very pretty with big trees and shallow clear river. Meadow we are camping in is very wide open. Ate dinner with the deer, 2 moms and 3 babies with white spots. Using us for protection from other unfriendly wildlife. Moving on to the river. Have seen obvious bear activity but no real bears yet. Want to see one. Miss TV and radio noise! Madrona trees here (the trees that don't have bark). Very sleak and smooth are these trees, much like the trees at Northwest Trek. Hopefully we will see the famous Roosevelt Elk soon. It appears some of our camping meadow has been mowed down by elk recently. Weather is changing since I sat down to write. Tops of trees are being covered by low fog clouds. Blue sky is turning gray. Much activity goes on here even though people aren't present as in the city. Still waiting for bear and rain.

Day Two: So far so good. Breakfast was nice and taking down our camp was simple. Off to our next destination. Wait - not so good. Difficulty hill is apparently approaching us. I am hiking with Amy and we are all alone on the massive hill. Amy is mad! This hill is horrible. Is this really worth the end result? My hips and my shoulders are killing me tonight as I reflect on our "difficult" climb. I feel like I lost 30 pounds just by taking off my backpack. Still not my night for dinner so the group food will have to stay in my backpack for another day - Great! Putting up camp again. Tonight I will make sure we are in a flat zone. Learned this misfortune that hard way yesterday. Still waiting for bear and rain.

Day Three: Hiking to Elk Horn for another lunch of peanut butter and jelly! The river is accessible from here. Weather is great. The blue sky outlining the large green trees of the forest is an incredible background for our afternoon of study. The area of the wake zone was filled with many small rounded rocks with multiple striations of color along with river bank. The large flying bug that was swimming stayed underwater the whole time I sat and wrote today - weird! Apparently, no air is necessary for this bug. Debris floated in and out of my shoreline - pinecones and small leaves. A squirrely worm that had attached itself to a rock is moving. When lifted out of the water "did a little dance" and was placed quickly back in the water. The Elwha River is very clear and cold - cold and clear enough to drink if it wasn't for the germs. Must get out my iodine tablets if I want to drink which of course, makes my water not cold by the time I get to actually drink it. Clear sky with white puffy clouds. The temperature of the water is cold but outside is quite comfortable for sun bathing - which I have discovered is a good way to spend my quite afternoons by the river. Have you ever seen deer swim? I can say I have now. They swim like a horse in water but are more graceful. Amy is better today now that difficulty hill is behind us for now. I know that since we went down one side of it, we will eventually have to go back up but I won't dwell on it until the time comes. Still waiting for bear and rain.

Day Four: Still hiking! Big surprize! Must have recorded at least 150 miles (actually more like 20 but it feels more like 150!). The forest is very pretty but I am tired of hiking trials and dirt. My feet are icky and everyone is getting pretty worn down. Guess what? No peanut butter and jelly today for lunch - summer sausage and cheese with crackers. We feel like royalty. Doing work today for the park: transects and foot of earth studies. Getting to know our group of 11 farely well by now - most of us are very aware that we only have 1 day left. I can't wait to realize tomorrow that I don't have to sleep on the ground. I can do anything for another 12 hours. Still waiting for bear and rain.

Day Five: Still hiking but going home today. We were supposed to be in by 2:00 p.m. but everyone seems to have extra energy and we are approaching the trial head much sooner than expected. My backpack doesn't seem as heavy today and apparently my lack of sleep isn't going to slow me down either. Amy and Cameron are happy and we have been planning our visit to some type of eatery in Port Angeles since 6:00 a.m. Still waiting for bear and rain. Each only has about 4 hours left to make their grand entrance. The weather has been beautiful. It doesn't always rain in the Olympic Forest. I drug that huge plastic poncho for 30 miles for nothing! Always be prepared is better than further suffering later. I have enjoyed meeting Lisa, the ranger for Olympic National Park. She is very smart and loves her forest. She can hike! It seems such a long time since I was this close to the trial head I can't remember this section as we get closer. I finally put on my Teva sandles and scrapped my hiking boots. My feet love me again! We have made good friends during this trip - you have to or it could get very lonely. I have seen wildlife but I am afraid my bear fascination will have to continue. I certainly do not want to see any bugs upon my return to civilization. I think I will have a few reminders of them for at least a few weeks! Still waiting for bear and rain.

Amy || Cameron || Chris || John || Mike || Victoria
Mrs. Hanson || Mrs. Thorleifson || Ranger Eschenbach || Tech Camp