Tammy and I celebrated our 20^th wedding anniversary in style last month – we went on a 50-mile backpack trip down Olympic National Park’s North and South Coast Wilderness Trails in Washington from Cape Alava to Oil City Trailhead.

I don’t want to overuse words like ‘awesome’ or ‘fantastic’ or ‘incredible’, so let me paint you a picture: this hike goes along one of the longest undeveloped stretches of oceanfront in the US. Imagine some of the most beautiful parts of the Oregon Coast, then remove all the houses, cars, roads, powerlines, most of the people, and all of the human-caused noise. Now, add in forests that come down to the beach and tidepools full of sea life, and you start to get the idea.

This natural beauty was greatly enhanced because Tammy and I were able to temporarily set down some layers of responsibility. Thanks to both sets of grandparents, and to the team here at RDF, for a little while, we weren’t Jack’s parents and we weren’t business owners. We were just Dan and Tammy, and the only thing we had to do each day was…hike.

And, it was glorious!  Here’s just a few photos of our adventure.  Check back later to read our “Life Lessons From the Trail”!

Our home for the first night at Cape Alava, WA

The “trail” is not what you think of as a typical trail – you’re scrambling up and over rocks & tide pools, navigating headlands that become more and more dangerous (and sometimes unpassable) depending on the tidal levels and going up & down ropes for the overland trails.

Working our way around rock outcroppings as the tide is coming in on us – sometimes stressful! (and we made it!)

Enjoying our aerie overlooking a deep cove.  It was quite the muddy climb to get up there and beautiful viewpoint!

Dan with a whale bone!

When the tide was in, we had to go up and over the headlands using ropes – sometimes tricky with a full backpack on.

A forest obstacle!