We had heard tails of terror about visiting Obstruction Point. It was a perilous route, in story. In reality, this six mile road is the best groomed single lane dirt trail we have ever driven. Even small cars like a Honda Civic seems to travel the road with little issue. The perilous part is the immediate cliff that we travel along resulting in accelerated heartbreak and some of the best views in all of Olympic National Park.
While we were not deterred by the road, we were derailed in out hiking plans. We didn’t realize that parts of the hike would be over glaciers and that parts of these glaciers would be 45 degree angles ending in a cliff. Given we had no ice picks and valued our lives over the view, we turned around a mile into the branch towards Deer Park and decided to hike in and out of the safer half of the loop, towards Grand Lake.
The hike was through an environment that I had never experienced. The rocky soil supported a few pine trees but mostly what we came across were lichens and small plants of the tundra, which could thrive in the cold and windy mountain tops. We also hiked through several several portions of snow. They looked like parts of glaciers, but it was still early summer. Maybe they melt off by September? The views were amazing, the hike was still challenging, and our lives were no longer in peril.
