Views from Mt. Walker

Olympic Peninsula Travelog #5
Quilcene, WA - Fri, 3 Sep 2021. 6pm.

After hiking Rocky Brook Falls this afternoon, our third waterfall hike of the day, we tried hiking a fourth, at Fallsview Camp, but it was too hard to find. We gave up and decided to hike a peak instead. Well, as it was late in the day it wasn't so much climb a peak as drive to the top and hike around a bit. Mt. Walker was nearby and offered mostly drive-to views.



From Mt. Walker's south peak we could see best to the south and east. The sky wasn't very clear— it has been clouding up all day— but I could just make out downtown Seattle... 28 miles away. A sign said Mt. Rainier would be visible on a clear day. Today's not a clear day.



The north peak of Mt. Walker provided views to the north and west. These were of closer peaks so they were easier to see. In the pic above are Mt. Constance, one of the tallest peaks in Olympic National Park, and the Warrior Peaks.

Hanging our Hats in Port Angeles

Olympic Peninsula Travelog #6
Port Angeles, WA - Fri, 3 Sep 2021. 7pm.

We arrived in Port Angeles, Washington, just before 7pm this evening. It's our stop for the night— for the next three nights actually— after a day of road-tripping down through Olympia and back up the Olympic Peninsula. We drove over 200 miles today and stopped for 4 hikes.

After a day like that you might think we'd pull up to some swank hotel, planning to relax in the hot tub this evening. Alas, no.



Port Angeles is not the town to find swank hotels in. Though it is a seasonal resort town and has lots of hotels there seems to be some kind of bizarre, anti-development ordinance that's barred new hotels from being built for 40+ years. The newest hotels seem to be from the 1970s, and some are clearly 1950s & 1960s vintage— still with original Streamline design, now getting ragged.

For tonight and the next few nights we're at the Angeles Motel. It's a small, family run hotel that's not affiliated with any chain. How small is it?



It's so small we're in room zero. There are only 13 rooms here. They're numbered 0 to 11... with 5½ somewhere in the middle. 😅



Our room is of diminutive size to match its diminutive number. All this, for only $150/night all-in!

Yes, Port Angeles is a seasonal holiday town has lots of shitty old hotels, and they are all expensive in holiday season. A reputable name-brand hotel we looked at cost over $300/night for this weekend. We decided against paying that much.

Many other hotels came in around $200/night and had attractive looking photos on bookings engines and on their websites.... Then on Yelp we read review after review that was like, "OMG, this place is a shit-hole, inside it looks nothing like the pictures, stay away!"

The humble Angeles Motel was nearly the only one in town that had uniformly positive reviews. The reviews weren't exactly glowing.... The property is old, small, and no-frills— but it's honest about these things, and the family that owns it & runs it lives onsite and act like decent human beings toward their customers (instead of the helpless jackasses who manage other properties and the absentee owners who don't return phone calls when things go wrong).

Well, we'll see how the next three nights go. Right now, though, it's time for dinner. There's a taqueria a block away, also a no-frills place that's at least honest about what it is and has decent reviews on Yelp. 😂