High Divide

The High Divide on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington State) is one of my favorite hikes. Some people run it all in one day, but I prefer to take 4 days and get in the lakes, do some star gazing at night, and take a few day-hikes on the side. I’ve done it twice with my family (Dad, Mum, and my little sister), and both times had outstanding animal spotting. On both trips I saw black bears, elk, wild turkey, tons of deer, and we even had a bunch of mountain goats roaming through our campsite. Ha ha – one of them tried to eat my little sister’s shoe!

The hike is a loop trail, so it stays interesting the whole way. We detour off the loop at one point and spend a day camped at Lunch Lake, which is just one lake in a series of seven beautiful alpine lakes. I caught a mess of fish in one of the lakes, and took a swim in a couple of the others. Cold, but fun!

The actual high divide part of the hike is a narrow ridge trail that overlooks the seven lakes on one side, and has a close-up of Mount Olympus and its glaciers across the Hoh River valley on the other side. There’s snow up there, even in July and August, so you can have fun with a snow fight or two as well. Another cool thing about this hike is that you have to cross over these huge cracks in the ground at several places on the ridges. We heard that these cracks are caused by seismic activity… earthquakes!

It’s such a beautiful hike and it’s so close to Seattle, so there are plenty of people. You have to have a permit and stay only in the designated campsites. But I can’t imagine there being a bad spot, and the permitting keeps the numbers down so you can enjoy it more.