Lake Crescent cabins offer off-season solitude
 |
|
||||||||||
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK - Spring is a bad word in the travel business. Travel agents delicately refer to this sluggish time as the "shoulder season." Ski-resort locals mired in melt-out simply call it "mud month."
But any traveler worth his dog-eared Baedeker knows the off-season can be an ideal time to travel - even to a place with such a reputation for sogginess as this Olympic Peninsula park and its historic Lake Crescent Lodge.
The lodge, on the south shore of its namesake lake about 25 miles west of Port Angeles, has a classic Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. During bright July and August, tourists and their children swarm to its motel-like lodges and cottages like mayflies after a hatch. Motorboats buzz on the lake. Coast-bound motor homes grind gears on worming Highway 101.
Sneak here on a weekend in late April or May, or midweek of a sienna Indian summer, however, and Lake Crescent Lodge recovers the low-decibel appeal it must have had when A.J. Singer built his tavern here a century ago.
"Lake Crescent from the air resembles a road-flattened coho. A lobe of the Vashon ice sheet carved the lake about 13,000 years ago. Today the water is ringed steeply by slopes of cedar and hemlock, and the clear, emerald shallows quickly dive to 600 feet. Despite the dramatic setting, rain frightens many tourists away. For much of the off-season the lodge's operator closes almost all but the four lakeside Roosevelt cabins (named for Franklin, who visited in 1937).
The cabins sit apart from the rest of the cottages along a pebbled hem of calm water. They have wood-paneled walls and large fireplaces. They are tidy, if plain - imagine Uncle Red's 1950s fishing camp with maid service. That's fine; the accommodations couldn't trump the setting if they tried.
I awoke after dawn one chilly morning to moisture drooling from the eaves. Behind the cabin, night clouds had brushed Storm King Mountain with snow. All week, work had settled into my neck and shoulders, drawn the muscles hammock-tight. But sitting in an Adirondack chair with a mug of black coffee, admiring a morning rainbow plunging into Lake Crescent, the tension gave up and took an early ferry back to Seattle. Rain or shine, these cabins are a decompression chamber for the bends of city life.
Yet there is much to do on and around the lake for those willing to embrace the rain, and many visitors use the lodge as a base camp for day trips. Its biologically unique Beardslee and Crescenti trout, which can grow to 25 pounds, have taken more than one dozing angler's rig to the bottom. Rowboat and canoe rentals, as well as sea-kayak tours, are available in the area.
Tracing the lake's north shore is the Spruce Railroad Trail, which was built during World War I to help haul out the light, strong wood for airplanes. Now the flat, four-mile trail is one of the few off-road places in a national park where mountain biking is permitted.
Nearer the lodge, several hikes dive into the 922,000-acre park. May is the greenest month in this greenest place, locals say, and the mile-long walk to Marymere Falls in near-rain forest backs up the boast. Best of all, the off-season is about the only time visitors won't have to jockey with retirees from Dubuque for a clear glimpse of 90 feet of plummeting water. Longer, steeper day hikes up Storm King and Pyramid Peak reward with great views back to the lake.
But for other off-season pilgrims I've talked to, a book, a fire-warmed cabin and a quiet companion is their ideal trip to Lake Crescent. The park banned personal watercraft here almost three years ago, and fishing season doesn't begin until mid-June, so for much of the year the lake's surface is unruffled by man.
Combine those silent, inky depths with the sky's wardrobe of grays, and Lake Crescent often assumes a spooky beauty - a feeling only bolstered by stories like the "Lady of the Lake," about a woman who was murdered in 1937. Her body, nearly preserved and turned to soap by the cold, alkali-salted waters of the lake, surfaced three years later and provided the evidence needed to finger her husband.
Next time, I promised myself, as I slid lower in my shore-side chair for a long morning of blissful sloth, I'll bring more Raymond Chandler and less REI.
If you go
Olympic National Park's Lake Crescent Lodge, about a 45-minute drive west of Port Angeles, may be out of the way, but it's not unknown. If you want an off-season getaway, call now. Only the four Roosevelt fireplace cabins are open until the second weekend in April. Winter rates are $88 for two people per night, including tax.
The entire resort, including maid service and dining room, opens again April 28. Rates for the high season vary from about $67 for a room in the historic lodge to $142 per night in the largest Roosevelt cabin, not including tax. For information, call 360-928-3211 or visit www.olypen.com/lakecrescentlodge. The resort can provide information about where to rent boats and fishing gear. For information about hiking and other activities in Olympic National Park, call 360-565-3000 or try www.nps.gov/olym/home.htm.
Chris Solomon's phone message number is 206-515-5646. His e-mail address is csolomon@seattletimes.com.