Backpacking – Occidentalist

A Loop of Washington’s National Parks | Olympic Coast

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2025-08-28
Post category:2025 Washington
Post comments:1 Comment

After departing North Cascade National Park we headed toward Whidbey Island and hopped the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula. We swung through Port Angeles to pick up our backcountry permit at the Olympic National Park wilderness information center, and the next morning we hit the trail out to the Olympic Coast from Ozette. The “Ozette Triangle” makes for a nice overnight loop if you want to get a taste for the Olympic Coast. At just over 9 miles round trip it’s not too long, but far enough to leave a lot of the crowd behind and see a bit of wild coastline.

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Eagle Cap Backpack, 2024

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2024-07-29
Post category:2024 Hiking
Post comments:0 Comments

We already had all our backpack gear out from our recent trip into the White Clouds, so we consulted the backpacking “want to go” list and started looking at trails in the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon. We found a lesser used trail that would still get us up to some lakes and before long we were on our way.

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Backpacking in the White Cloud Mountains, Idaho

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2024-07-23
Post category:2024 Idaho
Post comments:1 Comment

Summer was turning into a scorcher and I started looking at the weather map for anywhere we could escape the heat for a few days. It appeared the only place in Idaho that might still stay in the 80’s during the day and cool into the 50’s overnight would be the high elevations of the Sawtooth and White Cloud mountains in the middle of the state. The White Clouds had been on our list as a backpacking “want to do” for a while, so we loaded the packs and headed that direction.

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