We arrive late in the afternoon. We look for a park where to put the hammock. There is some green on the gps application near the river. We took all the luggage and there we see a lot of homeless people. After the good experience in Victoria, I am tempted to try here as well. Emilie suggests to speak with a small group. I refuse the gently offered pot, but they give me a good advice: run, it is dangerous there, because of narcotic people and they recommend another park, out of the center.
Il est 18h, Carrie, notre ‘chauffeur’, nous pose devant Powell books, l’institution du livre à Portland, Oregon.
Pour une fois, on a essayé d’organiser un peu notre arrivée et avons réussi à contacter quelqu’un sur couchsurfing, cependant il ne répond pas à notre dernier message.
In Port Angeles, at the tourist information, we understood that there are a lot of homeless people, so hitchhiking is difficult. The clouds looked pretty awful, so we waited for the bus to go to the West Coast to the ‘Third Beach’, in an Indian reservation. We arrived there by the free bus of the community.
At the dusk we crossed the Redwood forest to get to a paradise beach, well of the North, because it was raining. It seamed to be nobody.
We go to take the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington State, US. Crossing the border was the easiest and funniest. The customs office is on the way to the ferry, after the waiting hall. The office was so small, I took only my passport to check if there is really the customs. Since I was there, they checked the passport, got in 5 seconds the OK. Then I say, sorry, I forgot my girlfriend. I came back. We started to write some postcards. We couldn’t finish before the last person passed the customs, so they call for us. We are not under stress, but hurrying makes me forget a bag in the waiting hall … Can you imagine this scene in an American Customs Office ? At the end, Emilie asked to extended a little bit her authorization, the officer didn’t ask any question, she just said ‘how long do you want?’ and did it right away!
In Yellowstone there are a lot of Grizzly bears. We saw a movie how to behave at a encounter with a bear. 10 days before, a friend was in the park and saw a grizzly 10 meters away.
After discovering that hikers are 1000 times less than the ‘normal’ tourists, I thought that the probability of getting injured by a bear, increased by 1000 times.
I didn’t know any statistics. So walking alone whole day, with an expired bear spray, made me a little tensed. We were making noises when the trail was making a corner. We tried to camp before the sunset.
We cooked at a certain distance from the sleeping place, we hanged the food on a horizontal pole at 3 meters height. No water, hygiene stuff in the tent.
One day we could not find the camping site, because the marking was very bad. We decided to walk to the next one. So we arrived pretty late. Emilie was preparing the dinner, I was at the river trying to heal my feet wounds, when I heard a noise like a thunder, or airplane, from the forest. I ran towards Emilie, she heard as well. We started to shout and later to speak louder. I am not sure that it was a bear, but we got our dose of adrenaline. Next day I found that the site was not very clean, there were some rests of food.
Overall it was a thrilling experience, somehow I felt as a pioneer. We crossed big rivers
Here the cloud passed so fast that I didn’t have the time to change the camera to video mode
The last day, we were walking in the woods, but out of the national park. After several days of seeing no wildlife, I was almost wishing to see a bear. Turning a corner on the path, I saw through the leaves a brown thing. I realized very quickly that’s a horse, but my danger channel of brain already released the adrenalin. And the poor horses were scared by the noise I made with the sticks.
10 days later, a hiker was killed by a grizzly, in an area where we could have been, but we spent the day with a family.
Later I discovered some statistics
http://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/injuries.htm
