Tuesday, January 5, 2010
One day in November or early December I drove up to Fort Flagler for some hiking. One of the unique and wonderful things about Washington state and the Olympic Peninsula especially is the fact that you can barely go ten miles without encountering yet another state park. There are 5 within a 30 minute drive from my house. This one in particular is a 2 hr 45 min drive up from Tacoma. I thought it would only take 2 hours, but I always seem to forget that these parks are invariably located along the coastline way far away from the main thoroughfares, and to reach them, you have to circumnavigate numerous bodies of water while driving through lots of sleepy little towns and dense forests. Driving there is half the fun.
There are many forts situated on strategic bluffs in this part of Washington, built in the late 19th century to guard the nautical entrances to Puget Sound. These forts were closed a few years after WWII and turned into state parks. They are incredibly eerie to be walking around in, alone, on a winter afternoon. The parking lot for this park is quite generous - and mine was the only car there. Following a forested trail, I came upon structures like these every 1/4 mile or so.
Searchlight:
Primary Station:
And then there are these abandoned Gun Batteries with dozens of doors where any homeless person or hybernating bear or cougar could be hiding:
These holes --
used to have these bolted to them:
"Battery Calwell contained four, six inch disappearing guns, model 1903. These guns had a number of advantages over the earlier model Barbette types. The gun was raised above the concrete battery walls for firing and recoils to a lower protective position for loading.
The battery was built from 1903 to 1905 at a cost of $89,500. The shell weighed 108 pounds with a maximum range of 8 miles. War time manning charts called for 175 enlisted men and 5 officers.
The guns were removed in WWI and shipped to Europe in 1918. The guns were never replaced."
This Dharma Initiative hole was far far away in a field by itself, far from other structures. Seriously, walking around this park, I felt like I was in LOST.
The light was getting low and I'd heard lots of rustling in the bushes while out there in the woods by myself, so with the mountain looking like this, I headed back:
Skipped some rocks and chased gulls and watched the sun go down --
Someday I'd like to go back here (with people this time) and walk some of the other trails.
3 comments:
Love the Lost reference! It's so true! Back in August, Mom and KJ/Kelli took me and Julie/Bob to a different fort near Port Townsend or whatever, and it was exactly like that!! I really had no idea before then that WA had any forts.
And I love that state parks are so common in the Northwest. Gorgeous!
I want to go there... mm, Lost.
I loooove the picture of the staircase that you took. If I were to look at it offhand, it would feel even more ominous and mysterious than it already is.
Yeah, I would have been freaked out by rustling in the bushes, too. I love the picture of the mountain all hazy and pink with the embroidery of dusk-blue bare foliage in front of it. Sigh. Beauty.
Post a Comment