The Trip by James R. Sewall – Edited by John Niemi

June 19, 1973

From Rainier we drove to Olympia and Highway 101 to Aberdeen. I sense we were now very close to the Pacific, but we couldn’t see it. We followed 101 north into the Olympic Peninsula. Our destination was the July Creek campground where we were to meet John’s sister Barb and my former roommate, Doug. They had been dating for some time and were driving up from Newport Beach, CA. We arrived at about 5 pm; our moral dropped way down when we couldn’t find them in the campground.

July Creek is unbelievable – it really oozes water out of everything. Any dry material immediately assumes a limp, soggy feeling as soon as it meets the “air”. Finding dry wood for the campfire was a real problem; there just wasn’t any. However, down at Lake Quinault we found some driftwood and cedar that was dry inside. Miracle of miracles…I started a fire with newspapers and one match. John and Ronnie drove into town to buy some dry firewood and some appropriately name Olympia beer. John also bought a stocking cap with a real cute pompom.

Finally, at about 8pm, the California contingent arrived. Our morale soared. With a warm fire now drying us out we set to making dinner. Dinner was unusual… stew, tomatoes, macaroni and corn cooked altogether, but not bad.

July Creek was more like Mirkwood, or close to it…dark, quiet and creepy. The mosquitoes were gigantic and I kept hearing rumors of banana slugs. And the original “Manson family” and their mean dogs didn’t brighten it up much. At least camping was free.

June 20, 1973

Slept till 8 this morning; luckily it was warm all night, because being warm and soggy isn’t nearly as bad as being cold and clammy. Big breakfast of scrambled eggs (from Minneapolis no less), oatmeal and coffee. Took a roll of high-speed Ektachrome since the light was very dim. Really nice, as rain forests go. This being truly a rain forest is a nice place to visit, but not good for a base camp. One best word to describe July Creek would be “squish”.

At about 11am we left on Highway 101 north to Forks, Washington; and then west to Mora campground. The campground was about 2 miles west of the Pacific at Rialto Beach. The shoreline is one of the most primitive in the contiguous United States.