I’ve done quit a few hiking videos in the past but have been slacking on them quite a bit. Recently, I found new inspiration for a different approach to these videos and thought I’d give it another try.
For this first trip, I headed for the Staircase area of the Olympia National Park in Washington. This is a place that I’ve been to many times. Although I like the area, I dread the drive every time because a few miles out from the trailhead, you pass through a dirt road that’s just laden with potholes. Some of them are pretty deep and dodging was not a possibility because they were just everywhere. Trying to make it through this stretch of land with my lower ride height cars was just a nightmare. I told myself that until this road was fixed, I’ll never come back again. Well, I can confirm that the potholes have been filled! Well, most of them. I did see a couple but they were small and so far apart that they were no problem to dodge at all.
Our trip spanned two days. The first was to arrive on location and camp. The second was to pack up, hike, then leave. We knew that we wanted to camp somewhere. Staircase actually wasn’t even on the radar until we saw it on a list of possible nearby camping spots. Again, I’ve been here multiple times but I somehow never noticed that there was a campsite. It’s literally a few feet away from the trailhead. I ultimately wanted to give it a try because I wanted to camp somewhere where there was a hike. Because we were on a bit of a time crunch and because I knew this hike, it just made sense to give this location a try.
We arrived at the Staircase Campground around 3pm and the 47 spot campground was almost completely filled. There was actually a moment of nervousness about possibly having no camping spot and having to go home. This was really weird because this was the most crowded that I’ve ever seen this place. Literally every time that I’ve come here, the parking lots would be empty. So few people came here that I’ve never actually seen an attendant at the entrance or in the ranger station. The crowd continued on my second day here. The camp site’s check out was at 11am so that’s when we transferred over to the parking lot. Both parking lots were filled. I got the very last parking spot available. By the time that I finished the 2.5 mile or so hike, even more people came and there were cars parked out to the side of the road. Again, a drastic change from my previous trips. Going early is definitely my recommendation. If this was what it was like on a Wednesday and Thursday, I can’t imagine the weekend.
As far as the trail and Staircase Rapids hike, everything was as expected. Nothing really changed from my previous trips. The trail condition was good and nothing out of the ordinary or required extra avoidance. The only annoyance was the amount of bugs. I got bit a few times but the main thing to worry about is the abundance of hornets/wasps. We seemed to have caught the attention of about 5 of them and they followed us for over a mile, just circling and coming close. This really made the second half of the hike not enjoyable at all. Definitely bring some extra bug spray just in case.
Overall, this was an enjoyable trip. We do plan on going on more similar adventures this summer so you should expect more content like this. Hope you’ve enjoyed it. Let me know if you have any recommendations for some camp and hike spots!
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