#TravelBackThursday Olympic, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades

This week we’re sharing one of my favorite trips, our 2017 trip to the Pacific Northwest!

Jordan has always loved the PNW, so getting to spend two weeks experiencing this incredible part of the country was even more exciting.

We flew into Seattle, and immediately started on our 3 hour drive to Olympic National Park. Our first stop in Olympic was Kalaloch, the gorgeous beach where the Tree of Life lives.

The beach and the tree were incredible to see. We went for a nice stroll on the beach and then headed back to the Kalaloch Lodge to eat dinner at their Creekside Restaurant. After dinner we set up our tent at the Kalaloch campground, where we stayed overnight.

In the morning we were up bright and early. We went back to the beach to catch the sunrise and take a quick walk before we headed out on the Hoh River Trail in the Hoh Rainforest, about an hour northeast of Kalaloch.

Our planned hike took us 5.7 miles to Happy Four Shelter where we set up camp.

We had a day hike planned the next day, up to the Olympus Guard Station about 3.4 miles up the trail. We then planned to head back to our campsite, pack up and move our camp to Mount Tom Creek.

The trip back from the Guard Station to Mount Tom Creek was only about 6.2 miles, putting our total mileage for the day just shy of 10. We were feeling good so we packed up and decided to head out to spend the night in Seattle a day ahead of schedule.

Our first morning in Seattle we set out to find General Porpoise Donuts, an adorable little doughnut shop.

We loved traveling around Seattle, visiting the first Starbucks and spending a lot of time at Pike Place Market.

The flower market was insanely gorgeous.

There was also art everywhere.

And we saw a troll. (Fremont Troll.)

We also had to go to all the museums. (Pacific Science Center.)

After leaving Seattle, we headed to Mount Rainier. We chose a day hike to see some gorgeous meadows and then headed back out, on our way to Portland.

In Portland we did our first ever progressive dinner, where we moved from restaurant to restaurant between each course. Because we were only in the city for an evening, it was the best way for us to see the most of the city. We ended our evening at Ruby Jewel Scoops.

The main reason for us heading to Portland was to see the solar eclipse of 2017. We didn’t have a particular destination in mind, just somewhere within the path of totality.

We googled, and found a small city park in the town of Silverton to view the event.

From Portland, we headed back up to Bainbridge Island, near Seattle. A gorgeous winery town, I’m dying to return for a winery tour.

We had breakfast at the highly acclaimed Pegasus Coffee, the cutest little coffee shop I have ever seen. (I’m a sucker for ivy-covered walls.)

We also hit Blackbird Bakery for some scones before we took the ferry from Bainbridge back to Seattle.

After arriving back in Seattle, we headed north to Vancouver, Canada. This ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. We stayed at the Sylvia Hotel, which is 110 year old, opening in 1913. It was a gorgeous old building and I loved every minute of staying there.

My favorite thing about the hotel is the series of books written about the hotel cat, Mr. Got to Go. I picked up copies while we were there.

We also visited an old steam-powered clock.

And we loved visiting the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.

We also went to Grouse Mountain, a ski destination in the winter, which had beautiful views even when it’s not under snow.

We loved our time in Vancouver, it is quite honestly one of our favorite cities.

From Vancouver we headed back to North Cascades National Park.

Our hike up Sourdough Mountain was supposed to take us out and around the lake and back down, however, after a climb of over 4000 feet we were not ready to keep going. We camped at Sourdough and headed back down the next day.