The rain held off even though the forecast the day before called for it all day. I started my day at the Port Angeles YMCA getting a shower in before heading to the Olympic National Park visitors center. On my hike the day before, one of the people I talked to told me the Hurricane Ridge area was still covered in snow, and since that area was my plan for the next day and a half I stopped at the visitors center to get different trail recommendations to do instead. The ranger said the area I was at yesterday, the Lake Crescent area, had the best hiking right now. He recommended the Pyramid Peak trail, similar to the Storm King trail I did the day before, but on the opposite side of the lake and is 8 miles and over 2,300 ft in elevation gain. I headed over there and a drizzle was starting to come down. Fog filled in the valley and over the lake, but down below the fog, the lake was still very visible. The lake was just as calm as yesterday and just as dark blue. I parked at the trailhead, ate a little lunch, and started my hike. I didn’t have the intention of doing the whole hike, I was just going to see how I felt and what the weather was going to turn into since it was off and on drizzling as I went. The switchbacks weren’t as dramatic as the ones for the Storm King hike. At the start, they were long and gradual. Eventually, the trail started to narrow and was carved into the steep slope of the mountain face with ferns and brush creating green walls. I passed over some runoff waterfalls and eventually made it to the part where the trail was very narrow and barely carved into the side of the washed-out sandy rock slope of the mountain. While it was the scariest part of the hike, it gave some awesome views of the lake below, still under the blanket of white fog. The water was so still it looked like blue jello. With careful feet, I crossed the steep face and kept moving. Around this time I only really had a mile left until reaching the top, so I decided just to hike the whole thing. The switchbacks got significantly steeper after that and a bit muddier too. The forest was really beautiful, dark and cloudy with the fog. I passed a woman who reassured me I wasn’t too far from the top, just a handful more switchbacks to go. Well, I think she sugarcoated that a little bit because it didn’t feel like just a few more. But I made it and my reward was a fogged-out view haha. It still looked really cool since the lower trees down the cliff looked wispy and silhouetted. At first, I couldn’t tell if I was at the top since it looked like a small path kept going, but I decided it was the top and followed another little path to a higher little overlook. I eventually heard voices coming from the other path and that confirmed that this was the top and that path just led to another little overlook. This trail wasn’t busy at all so I knew it was just me and that group up there. I only stayed long enough to eat a snack and see a small break in the thick fog revealing a little bit of the lake shore before more fog rolled in. The group left and I didn’t want to be too far behind them since I was the last person coming down the trail. Just in case something happened I didn’t want to be completely alone. About 10 minutes down the trail a couple was hiking up so then I just relaxed and took my time coming down. Along the way I passed a few slug friends, almost stepping on them.
I hung out at the Storm King Ranger Station to use the bathroom and get a little cell service before heading back to Port Angeles. As I was driving back I noticed the fog had lifted higher than the mountains and that the view at the top of Pyramid Peak was probably visible now. I’m sure it would have been really cool but that’s okay, wasn’t meant to be. I picked up a pizza and fried pickle chips from a local restaurant for dinner on my way back to the Walmart. I parked for the night and enjoyed my evening with a beer before calling it a night.
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