2006-07-02 The Journey 2006-07-03 Orcas Island 2006-07-04 Orcas Island to Victoria 2006-07-05 Victoria to Olympic NP 2006-07-06 Olympic NP 2006-07-07 Olympic NP to Seattle 2006-07-08 Seattle CVS

Day 2 - Monday, July 3, 2006

The air was brisk as I awoke from the sleep of the dead.  I showered, changed into my hiking clothes, packed my suitcase, and hauled my luggage up to the van.  Paul looked at me quizzically, and it was then that my brain processed the information that had been communicated to me clearly the night before (not to mention printed in black & white on the day's itinerary sheet) -- we were staying at Cascade Harbor another night.  After sheepishly returning my luggage to the room and packing a big lunch for the day's hike, I was off down the hill with the rest of the group to Rosario to enjoy a hearty breakfast at the resort.  Having slept through last night's dinner, I attacked the buffet with mucho gusto.

After breakfast, we piled in the van for the short hop up the road to Moran State Park, part of which I had already seen from the window of the Orcas Island Vomit Comet the evening prior.  Moran State Park consists of more than 5000 acres of land on the eastern arm of Orcas Island, including the original 3600 acres donated by Robert Moran in the 1920's.  As with many state parks, Moran SP's facilities were developed largely by the CCC during the Great Depression.  The centerpiece of the park is the 2400-foot-tall Mount Constitution, upon which a CCC-era stone tower offers unobstructed views of Lummi Island, Bellingham Bay, and Mt. Baker (an active snow-capped volcano) to the west and Matia Island and Vancouver, BC to the north.

We started the morning with a hike from Cascade Lake, near the park entrance, up to the Mt. Constitution summit, ascending 2027 feet over 4.3 trail miles.  Abby, Sue, and I were at the front of the pack for most of this hike.  We hung out for a while at the summit, enjoyed the views, took some photos, went up in the tower, and had a snack before descending 1300 feet over 1.5 trail miles to the Twin Lakes.  At the Twin Lakes, I devoured a sandwich and admired an entirely different sort of view (and the lakes were scenic as well.)  Most of the group split off from here and hiked directly down to Mountain Lake, descending 200 feet over 2.2 trail miles.  Abby and I instead took the more strenuous option and looped around to Mountain Lake via. Mt. Pickett Road, ascending 600 feet and descending about 800 feet over 3 1/2 trail miles.  The Mt. Pickett hike didn't offer any of the panoramic views such as we had seen from Mt. Constitution, but it did offer a chance to see different varieties of trees, many of them larger than the ones on the other side of the park, bogs in various stages of senescence, and a wider variety of flora and fauna.  It also offered the chance to get to know Abby, who turned out to be a thoroughly fascinating person.  She used to be a park service search and rescue worker in the Grand Canyon and had plenty of good stories ...

We arrived at the Mountain Lake campground not long after the rest of the group.  Mountain Lake is a 200-acre man-made reservoir that was built by Robert Moran primarily for the purpose of supplying fresh water to his estate.  At the southern end is an earthen weir dam that releases flow-through water into Cascade Creek, which descends at a gradient of more than 100 feet per mile before entering the sound at the town of Olga.  After a quick breather at the Mountain Lake campground, Eric & Sue joined Abby and me for a 3+-mile hike down Cascade Creek, along which we saw some of the largest old growth trees we'd seen thus far as well as the trio of Cavern Falls, Rustic Falls, and Cascade Falls, all cloaked in shadow.  The rest of the group vanned it back to the hotel.

When we were about 1/4 mile from the end of the trail, it hit me that I had just hiked 12+ miles and climbed several thousand feet.  I was done, and I said as much to Abby.  I think she was relieved to hear that I wasn't going to make her walk the rest of the way back to the hotel.  Fortunately for both of us, the van was waiting at the trailhead.

That night, we dined like shipping magnates of old in the Rosario mansion.  I had the halibut.