Rock Me Like A

 

I don’t know why I keep expecting the weather to be better at a place called Hurricane Ridge.

I’ve got no legitimate reason to be disappointed. I know it’s the top of the mountain, and it’s February. And I was duly warned in the very name of the location. Yet…

It’s not a short drive to Olympic National Park, but it is a pretty one. And it was around 40 degrees and raining, which is what it usually is here this time of year, so viewing nature for a couple of hours through the glass of the F-150 wasn’t bad.

We showed the gate attendant our National Park Pass, and she warned us that tire chains were required to be put on for all two-wheel drive vehicles, and any four-wheel-drive vehicles unless they have snow-rated tires. She even explained that snow-rated tires have a symbol on the side of three mountain peaks with a little snowflake in the middle.

We knew we were required to have tire chains with us from reading the rules on the website and from previous trips, but this was the first time we had been told the chains were actually required to be on our tires. At the gate, it was still 40 degrees and raining, just like it had been all day. Ann asked when we needed to have the chains on by, and she suggested pulling over just before the tunnels.

We made it to the tunnels, and the road was still just a little slushy, so we kept going. I wasn’t sure if I had bought snow-rated tires or not. It seemed like the kind of thing I would do. I remembered looking into the specs on a lot of different tires. We pulled over and Ann hopped out, looked at the tires and said, “Yes, we’re good to go,” so we kept driving sans chains.

The last mile or so the road was completely covered, and it would have been kind of hard even telling where the road was, had it not dropped off sharply to an abyss a few thousand feet below. I shied away from that side and hugged the side with the rocks and trees.

Arriving at the top, there were other cars there. We got there by 1 p.m. so we could sign up for the “Snowshoe with a Ranger” program, in which the National Park Service provides you with snowshoes and a ranger to guide you, gratis. We’re all about the free.

When we did this drive back in December with the boys, once we got to the top where we were anticipating taking a hike, we found gale force winds that caused us to turn tail and run away. I assumed that was a bad day.

Today matched that weather. When we got out of the truck, we were hit with a wind that would have caused Sir Ernest Shackleton to say, “You know guys, we’d better just go back home.” But I bravely persevered about 10 yards to the little house trailer, approached the window, and said, “Are you doing the Snowshoe with a Ranger program today?”

“Yes,” one of the two women in the trailer happily replied. “Just meet outside the trailer here at 1:30 and we’ll get you set up.”

There were a few trailers up there; one full of equipment, one the rangers were using as an office and one that was a nicely heated restroom. Apparently there used to be a visitors center there, but it burned a few years back in a forest fire.

We sheltered in the truck for half an hour and put on all the clothes we brought with us. Then we met the ranger outside of the shed and she gave us all snowshoes. They limit the group size to 20. There were nine people in our group in addition to the ranger. Surprisingly, five of us were from Missouri. Even more surprisingly, one of the other Missourians works for the Missouri Department of Conservation as an agent.

The ranger said, “This is the worst part,” as we set off across the parking lot through the wind and blinding snow. Then we got to the trees, and everything was fine. I grew up on a farm, have always been a hunter, and have spent a lot of time outside in all kinds of weather, but I’d never experienced a difference this dramatic. In the open parking lot, you felt like you may not make it… like you had somehow ventured to one of the poles, and no human being was really ever supposed to be there. As soon as you got into the woods, it was fine. We walked slowly and did a lot of standing around, and I was still overdressed. I could have been out there all day, no problem.

The ranger was great and gave us an informative nature talk along the way. She showed us these green snowsicles hanging off the trees and asked if anyone knew what they were. Someone answered lichens. She said yes, and asked someone to explain what lichens are and are not, giving us a clue that they aren’t a plant. She then explained a lichen (/ˈlaɪkən/ LY-kən, UK also /ˈlɪtʃən/ LITCH-ən) is a hybrid colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among filaments of multiple fungus species, along with bacteria^[1][2] embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualistic relationship. The simpler way to remember and explain that: Freddy Fungus met Annie Algae and the took a Lichen to each other.

We made it back to the parking lot, braved the wind again, and turned in our snowshoes. We then went back to the truck for the long trip down.

The drive back down was harrowing. We passed by a several-member mountain rescue team deploying in the parking lot. I thought, “The good news is that they are close. The bad news is that they are busy.”

 The road was covered and initially hard to see. It was white-knuckle grip-on-the-steering-wheel time. I found myself thinking about those three mountain peaks with the little snowflake stamped on my tires, and thought, “Yeah, these were snow-rated tires when I bought them… how many miles are on them now? Are tires that are half, or maybe more than half, worn out still really snow rated? When these tires are totally bald, they are still going to have the three mountain peaks with the little snowflake stamped on the sidewall.”

I was picturing the mountain rescue team having a good chuckle after cutting my remains out of the wreckage of my truck, and finding my tire chains, still in the package, in the back of the truck.

But despite those visions of doom, we made it down the mountain unscathed. Our little walk was fun, and we definitely want to do more high-elevation wintertime hiking, either by renting some snowshoes or buying our own. We’re just going to have to figure out if they make snowshoes for dogs.