Tickling the Sky: The Klahanne Ridge/Heather Park Loop

Lake Angeles is one of first places locals here on the Northern Olympic Peninsula mention when you ask about favorite hikes. This little gift from the age of great, carving glaciers, its signature island the perfect accent, rests at 4196 feet in the crook in an elbow of cliff bands jutting around and down from Klahhane Ridge, the grand northern edge of the Olympic Mountains dominating Port Angeles's southern skyline. This shot is from maybe 800 feet above. Stretching out below the lake is the 3 and a half miles of densely wooded trail starting at the Heart of the Hills/Hurricane Ridge Olympic National Park entrance, and beyond, the gentle drop to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and across its 18 miles or so to Vancouver Island. Victoria, Canada is visible as a thin smudge on the far shore and, peeking out from under the clouds along the near edge of the Strait, is Port Angeles. Kat, her friend, Gabby Brulette, and I hiked the exquisite 13.3 mile Lake Angeles, Klahhane Ridge, Heather Park loop on Halloween day, capturing this view along the way.

Ocean View Cemetery is hidden in the cloud line, just to the left of the little city below the lake. Ocean View, here looking north across the Strait toward Canada, cradles not only the remains and memories of those gone ahead but, like other grave yards, it cradles history. This note is about the wonders of our high, looping trek. The next will be about what one can find far below, wandering amongst people long gone who surely loved as we do Lake Angeles and the powerful ridges hovering over their lives.

The trail to Lake Angeles begins like this; moderate, easy, with yet another and another of this country's picturesque, rough hewn bridges, each one a character in its own right, thrown over gullies and swales, every depression filled with the threat or promise or flow of water. You cross Ennis Creek along here.

Down low, the forest floor is littered with every green imaginable, everything growing on everything else, every possible surface a host. It is impossible for your eyes to be bored, what with layers of fallen trees flopped and woven in every direction, colored by seasons upon seasons of new life and death. The smells alone are worth the walk. And the things you stumble upon.

These tiny, delicate mushrooms, for instance, were new to us. Thanks to the Seek app, we now know that they're Orange Moss Agaric. And thanks to our friends Lynn and Gordy, we also know that you wouldn't want to eat them; you might have a little trouble getting back to the trailhead, being so sick and all. But they are like fine, elfin jewelry set out for display there in the woods.

Or, like these. They may not appear impressive looking at this photo, just some pieces of ice, but...these ice crystals are unlike anything we'd experienced. They come up from the ground, seriously. Along the trail, the dirt was loose, sort of small gravel. It was difficult to tell what the dirt would have been like if it was warmer, it was October 31st and plenty chilled, especially up high, so the ground was loosely firm and gave way under foot in a measured sort if way, and when it did, these crystals pushed up, out of the ground. There were all sorts of configurations; Gabby and Kat found some that were actually inch long hollow cylinders of ice. This was maybe at 4500 or 5000 feet plus and lasted off and on for a good long way. Lynn and Gordy (again) told us that, with all the moisture in and on the ground and air, with the cold of the mountains, maybe other factors, the crystals are actually growing up, out of the ground, maybe like icicles but up, forming between the gaps in the dirt. Maybe, but I suspect more elfin handiwork. Crazy, beautiful.

The push up to Klahhane and Mount Angeles, I think that's it up there on the right, was a grunt. 1800 feet above the Lake by the time we reached the base of the Mt. As you can see, its a good, long, beautiful way. Before we were done, we'd reached and traveled that whole ridge line above.

The views near the top of the ridge are spectacular in every direction. That's Mount Baker of the Cascades, past the San Juan Islands and north of Seattle.

The K Ridge itself is a ton of fun. The trail weaves back and forth, so for a moment you're on the western side looking out over Port Angeles and the Strait to the north, then to the eastern side with a southern cant and Grey Wolf Ridge, Hurricane Ridge, and Mount Olympus are staring at you. Here, we've moved closer to Mount Angeles, its vertical striations perpendicular to any logical formation of layers and the ridge line is wide and flat. The mountain was a striking part of the first high hike our family did out here, right after we bought the lake property and still had years before we would move.

This was Shar, Katharine, and Conor posing with Angeles probably 7 or 8 years ago. The kids have changed a ton, Shar not so much, the mountain, of course, not at all. Still one of the more graphic examples of a an ocean floor turned up on its side I've ever seen.

We ate where Klahhane meets the Mount, about 6 and a half miles from the Heart of the Hills and its 1849 feet. Now at 6000, we were clearly feeling all of the 4000 foot climb and really had no idea what the next half of the loop had in store for us. That sign you see beside the family says, among other things, Heather Park and points straight down hill into the cirque dropping out below to the westside. That is where the loop trail goes. From up top there you can also see that the trail (or 'a' trail) swings up and over another ridge line made up of a series of little peaks that follow behind Angeles along the edge of the cirque. So, down into the cirque we went, dropping 400 feet according to the topo, edging just below Angeles, and then we had to climb again , up the slope in the photo from below that rock band on the left, back up 300 feet to a little saddle at about 58 or 5900 and behind us here. Plenty of climb for our leaden legs, and still another grunt straight up to go, although we didn't know it yet.

But, man, when we turned around, a different world. There was that crazy red band of rock just above the saddle we were moving through. (I know someone reading this will know immediately that the rock is iron or something. All I know is that it amazing) and then...

then just beyond... the earth just fell away. Where we'd just been dropping into and climbing out of a wide, smooth gravely cirque, now there was this deep, wild cut with a monolith storming up from the just a bit in front of and below us. The effect was startling, exciting, with the trail working its way high along the upper part of the valley, often swinging out on some edge, like there on the right, or crossing some washed out, scree filled gully.

The trail hangs close to 5500 feet, past somethings called First Top and Second Top, neither of which I could identify, until it finally took us up and over another saddle, past these formations below that could have passed for an army of gendarme in the Rockies or a outcrop of hoodoos somewhere near Farmington, New Mexico. That last little push was enough to kick our butts, but was the last of the up hill. Unfortunately, we still had around 4 miles to get back to the truck. The hoodoo saddle was at 5600 feet, so we also had to drop about 3800.

The walk down was wooded, beautiful, familiarly lush as we got back down into the wet valley. The last two miles was mostly that sort of dull plodding when it really is best that you're numb. After a couple of hours the ladies punched out of the trees ahead of me but as a clear sign of failure to respect their elders, they refused to get the truck and come back to carry me to the parking lot. Of course, to do so they would have had to break several federal laws busting through signs and fences to save me maybe two minutes of walking, but still.

Incredible, wonderful clear day, all the exercise we could handle, and a whole new world, this Heather Park. I'm told that there is a trail, the Little River Trail, running down the center of that incredible deep-cut valley and up to Hurricane Ridge. Snows have come so that will be for next year.

Next, Discoveries in Three Peninsula Graveyards: Nudging History