Shelton Boondocking, Hood Canal, Mt Ellinor Views for Daze

Posted 3 years ago by Mike

Time to do some exploring of the East side of Olympic National Park.  This park is so large it is impossible to see it all from one location.  I really wanted to hike Mt Ellinor.  Emi not so much.  Emi enjoys valley and river hikes — flat and not too strenuous.  I, on the other hand, like views, and to get views you gotta climb 🙂  Emi was kind enough to give in to my request and make the attempt to summit Mt Ellinor.  While the hike is not very long, it is pretty much 250 floors on a stair climber 🙂  The forest, the rock formations, all of it was amazing on this trail.  However, the weather did not cooperate.  We were hoping the clouds would break but they never did and while we did reach the summit, all we could see was clouds.  Oh well, it was still a challenging adventure and worth the effort.

 

We were able to get some nice views at lower elevation.  The view of Hurricane Ridge from Cushman Lake was very cool.  We drove along Hood Canal and stopped in Hoodsport for lunch.  Tasty burger and brew.  And finished the day with a milkshake from a Drive-In in Shelton.

 

This little side trip involved a two-night boondock in Shelton.  This time we had no hookup at all and ran off the battery.  We thought we would have no problems since it was only a couple nights.  Probably would have been fine but the battery was bad.  I knew we were in trouble when the control panel was reading at 2/3 of a charge.  And by the time we went to bed the first night it was fluctuating between 2/3 and 1/3.  But the next morning it was back to 2/3.  Definitely not looking good.  The battery finally gave out in the evening of the 2nd night.  The fridge runs on propane but needs a little charge to keep the pilot and ignitor going.  That started acting up so had to just turn off the fridge.  Then the carbon monoxide detector started faulting and chirping every 20 seconds or so.  Finally just disconnected the battery.  At least it was a good learning experience.  And fortunately, we were heading out in the morning anyways.  So we just headed out a bit earlier that next morning and went to McDonalds for breakfast.  We were really roughing it — ha!!!

 

We want to be able to boondock for up to 4 nights at a time, possibly longer if there is water and a dump station nearby.  We replaced the battery so hopefully that will allow us 3 nights, but we also ordered a 2000W generator just to run a couple hours a day to keep the battery charged up.  We are still learning how this RV Life works.  All we can do is not worry too much about “what-ifs” and tackle any issues as they arise.

 

One of the best things about RV Life is discovering the unexpected.  You can have a rough plan on places to see and things to do.  But sometimes the best part of a trip is those surprises you stumble on.  For us on this trip, it was Lake Isabella.  Our Boondockers Welcome host’s property was next to Lake Isabella State Park.  We had no intention of going there but since we were right next door, why not.  Very beautiful lake.  We enjoyed it so much we loaded up our camp chairs and drove to the lake to hang out for a few hours.  Nice, relaxing afternoon.