MoFate's Drop in the Bucket List: June 2016

Mohit’s summer internship is an 11 week consulting project with the National Park Service (NPS). Since he’ll be spending 10 weeks in Sequoia National Park, where Fate will be joining him for 5 weeks, we wanted our car with us. So… Mohit drove the trusty little Kia Forte from Atlanta to Olympic National Park (2 hours west of Seattle) where he spent five days in training.

Before the jokes about ranger training begin, let us stress again that this is a professional internship. As much as Mohit would like to go hiking every day, people unfortunately don’t want to pay him for that. They do want to pay him for building excel models though…

Things to know if you visit

2016 is the Centennial Anniversary of the founding of NPS. We’ve got a big marketing campaign and people are hitting the parks hard this summer. Prepare for a crowd in these famous parks and hikes.
The Storm King hike is really worthwhile. It’s about 4 miles out and back (round-trip), but with an elevation gain of ~2,000 ft. So it’s tough and involves getting past two rope climbs. But at the top, you get a beautiful view of the lakes and can even see Canada on a clear day!
The Hurricane Ridge viewpoint is definitely worth a visit. If you have time, go past the visitor center as far as the road will go. There will be a small parking lot there that leads to a ~3mile trail to the top of the mountain. Fantastic morning hike with views of lakes, mountains, and wildlife.
Don’t eat at the Crescent Lodge restaurant. It’s like $$$$ and the food is meh (except pork shank, which is good.)
Crescent Lake is beautiful. Definitely try to kayak/canoe there for half a day, or at-least jump into the lake in the early afternoon. Warning, the water is around 55F in the summer.

Fun facts

There is nothing of even remote interest between Kansas City and Denver.
The dam removal project in Olympic NP was the most expensive project in NPS history ~$325M. But you can’t go see the site of one of the old dams because the road flooded… We saw this coming but meh.
The state of Washington IDs everyone who enters a liquor store with you. Literally everyone, even when the group is 10+ people, all well over 21.
Many national forests, including the one near Olympic, allow hunting with a license… So don’t wear camo when you’re hiking around near the border of a national forest and a national park.
Twilight was shot here at Olympic. That's the only fun fact I can come up with about this situtaion...