Yes, a very good initial timetable for the AvatarMeet -- nice job, Aketuan! :)

You did a wonderful job on the time line. Well done!! Any idea on how we get the supplies and people to the campsite and back to Seattle? We are using tents while camping, yes?

Thanks for the comments on the timeline - I'll keep it updated as we add things...

@Moms Ball Avatar: we have only worked out the major details yet, eventually we should have everything planned out including transport stuff. Tents? yeah I think most people will do tents.

@ HNM: thanks for the log :)

Sarah said she'd have a car we could use which would be cheaper than a shuttle. I'm all for cheaper :)

James of Terra and I discussed on renting a fleet van to haul stuff.

Ya, I going to comferm some info this week. Will let you know what i find.

Great timetable! Can you publish it as a Google calendar?

When things get finalized (soon hopefully) we should have the timetable published and a calendar on avatarmeet.com.

Anxiously anticipating the final dates :D I will buy my tickets ASAP when I know.

Moco: goal is 2 weeks

OK so how is next friday, September 23rd at 10:00 PM PST for our next discussion? (same time as last time)

We can get some specifics down and figure out some general stuff.

(sorry for postx2)

I'll be doing something that night. Any date is okay with me. I can plan the other vacation around it. I just want to know about logistics.

I'm fine with that even if it is very early, I'll try and be up again :P

I really just need the dates 100% confirmed now.

Working as hard as we can to confirm all the dates.

We are taking a little time just to make sure that we don't end up with some big FAIL, so stuff like Hotel arrangements is something we are getting cleared up before we are calling the dates "Final".

- Mikko

Sorry about not responding immediately, but that should be good by me.

Looks like most of us can make it this Friday. I think we are still waiting on a few people...

About Dates: THIS team (camping planning team) will need to confirm the camping dates/place/basic logistics asap (probably this Friday). THEN, the avatarmeet planning team will take our information/dates, combine it with the meetup dates/info and THEN publish the finalized dates of the whole meetup/camping trip.

Yeah, currently it's a bit all go on the planning front. There are a number of things that have to be confirmed in various areas that we need to bring together and we've given ourselves a two week target to aim for. We'll do our best to achieve that so everyone can begin to make their travel plans.

Afraid I probably will not be able to make this Friday's Camping IRC meeting thingy as I'll be heading up to York (Old York - hehehe), where I'm helping with a railway exhibition at our National Railway Museum. Although I might be able to join in through my phone. Might be a bit intermittent though as we go through the tunnels! Is there anything you need from me at all for this?

One thing that springs to mind is for those needing to hire stuff. They will need to collect the gear and drop of their other stuff before making their way over. For some reason I had it in mind that I need to investigate the ferry across and a shuttle bus thingy to the camp site as an option, but I can't remember now. :S

Alan (Brain slowly frying:P)

@Alan, yes definitely getting gear and transportation is very important. There is a problem though: people will be arriving at different times/days in Seattle, and some won't even go to Seattle before going to the campsite. I think people will have to arrange their own transport/gear. Maybe people can group together and arrange mini shuttles or something, but I don't see the possibility of a mass group transit or "gear hiring run".

If it's arranged well enough so that I'm not driving all the way out to the airport for a single person, I wouldn't mind being a ferry between the airport and camp ground a few times as long as gas prices are split between the passengers. This will need to be refined obviously once the dates are set and people start buying tickets .

Edit: I forgot how many hours away the airport is from the Olympic Peninsula, I'm still willing to pick up a few people on my drive from Seattle to the campground, but won't be driving back and forth.

Also, I realize my dad might not let me have the car for 4 consecutive days out in woods, leaving him stranded. It depends on his work schedule.

Peninsula Bus Lines runs between Seatac and Port Angeles daily. Regrettably Alaska Airlines stopped operating out of Port Angeles airport a few years ago. Kenmore Air still goes there though, I think. Believe it or not, a charter flight isn't that expensive when you fill the plane. But the bus line should work for most people. There should be a place in Port Angeles where you can rent camping gear...

definitely good info...we should get some data on this and maybe come up with a great transport/gear plan. :)

Great info Sempu. Irayo. I did a quick search on ts'internet and found these:

Olympicbuslines.com - looks like you get a ferry ride thrown in too! Yo-ho-ho!

Another interesting - mega cheap option here:
Bus and Ferry Schedules

General transport options:
Getting to the Olympic Peninsula | Olympic Peninsula

Interestingly, like you mentioned Sempu, you can charter a plane. It'd be like arriving on a shuttle! Hell Yeah. "Let nobody be dead today. It would look very bad in my report!":D:D

Certainly some options there. I guess once we get some firm number of how many will be going and when they are arriving it might be an option to look into a bus shuttle or something. Would save having to possibly rent cars, which would only be used for two days out of the four or having people taxi folks about and miss out on the fun. Might also reduce our carbon footprint too! We gota look after Pandora too. Hehehe.

Just found out Tacoma is 110 miles away and Seattle 76 miles - via ferry. Gulp! Didn't know it was that distance. It only looked like ->| |< - that far on the map!:facepalm:....:xD:

Alan

how many clicks? :0

info from discussion here

It's an easy drive, 2 hours from Seatac and you don't need a ferry. From downtown Seattle though, you do, make it 2.5 - 3 hours. You can do a one-way rental but those tend to be expensive and conceivably P.A. could be a location they won't do it to.

Hotel-wise, if you need one for a night, I like the Super 8 on the edge of P.A. for a mix of clean and cheap. There are far cheaper places closer in of the breed that does not advertise.

So glad Sarah's got a car available :D Hope she can help some of you out as well.

I should be at the weekend events for sure. The camping and hiking trips sound very fun. I am not sure I will be able to get the time off though since I am starting a new job next month and I won't have any vacation time my first year. I have not been backpacking for about 10 years when I did a 50 mile hike in the Olympics. It has also been that long since I have been out that way so a camping trip there is something I need. I think I would just take the ferry over since I live in Seattle and the drive around is looong.

A good question for me to ask is how accessible is the campground in terms of the road in. I drive a lowered car that is no friend to driving on anything beyond a gravel driveway. I got stuck on a speedbump once..quite embarrassing..So if its a real rough road then I won't be making it.

awesome news, I hope you can make it next year for the actual meetup or the camping. :)

About the road, it is paved all of the way to the campground, so I think you should be ok.

Good, I won't have a problem then. It should be a good time. I will have to wait and see if I can get the time off from work though...It will be some months before I know.

If I'm out on the 4 day camping trip, my dad might not let me take it, leaving him stranded without it for days. I just depends if he's offshore or not. So you should neither depend on it nor offer it to other people for now.

:hmm: All I said was that I hope it is available for others. I wasn't offering.

In fact, maybe more people have cars / can rent cars / or count on cars with everybody splitting the bills? If Sarah can - it will be glory & haleluya, if not, because of a variety of factors (& many things can happen between now & then) - it will be wise to keep different options in mind. Or maybe like Alan suggested even a bus/ shuttle could be an option... I am just thinking what state I would be in after crossing half of the planet :hmm: (not very chirrupy probably) & also thinking about other aytsmukan & aytsmuke from very far away.

Kaltxi folks,

Well I've been doing a bit of research on transport from Sea-Tac to Sol Duc Campsite so here is the low down:

Public Transport:
Think this is a bit of a last resort. Whilst it is perfectly do able and possibly the cheapest way, it will take forever to get there. 5 hours as a good estimate, 7 hours on a bad day. Also the bus operator I contacted said the buses are rather busy and therefore might not be able to accommodate all the luggage too. However, she did forward some other contacts, which matched the ones I had already found.

Bus Hire:
There were three that I have tried: Dungeness Line, Rocket Transportation (Pandora not on the list of places they go!) and All Points Charter.

Dungeness Line: (Olympicbuslines.com) They do two services daily from Sea-Tac to Port Angeles only (although it says they do charters, but the lady I spoke to did not seem to be forthcoming on that one). A round trip comes out at about $79, so $39:50 each way. Reservations are not required, but strongly recommended.

Rocket Transportation: (Rocket Transportation) This company offers a 'loose' door-to-door service for people...and their pets!...between Sea-Tac and the Olympic Peninsular. I contacted them and they can do a dedicated shuttle for us. Their bus size is limited to 9 people, although they have more than one bus! The cost comes out at $600 for a round trip. Sounds a lot, but if you divide between 9 people is come out at just over $33 each way providing the bus is filled up, which doesn't seem to bad at all considering the distance.

All Points Charter: (Home) The Public Transport lady said this company is run by a rather colourful charater and when you see his website, you we get that impression. I certainly got that impression when the first word in his email reply to me was 'Howdy'. (I guess a bit like me saying 'Ey up mi duck' which is what passes for hello where I live!) Anyway he can certainly provide a service for two different group sizes: For 12 people or less - $400. For 13 to 24 people - $770. This works out at about $33 each way providing the bus it filled up. I suspect we would also get a running commentry all the way too which might be interesting.

The latter two mentioned above would be able to provide a shuttle all the way to the Sol Duc campsite.

I asked when we would need to book by and the response I got back was by March next year, May at the very latest.

So there you go. It looks like we have four options open to us, although there are really only two options that would provide the best shuttle to suit our needs. Either way it seems they might be cheaper than car hire and help us reduce our carbon footprint in the process too!

Hope that helps.

Alan

Alan:

Awesome! :)

I looks like we have a better option for people now. We should add this info to the timeline...

No worries, mate. Pleasure. Feel free to edit it into something a little more succinct than my drivel! :nlol:

Do we know how many people are interested in coming to the camping trip?

Alan

Great job on your researching of transport for us, Alan -- Irayo for posting all that info! :)

Interesting, but we'll really have to make sure we all arrive at the airport at a similar time... for that, I REALLY need to know these dates are not going to change :(

Yeah, I'm surprised they aren't really set yet :hmm: also, is there a list of who is going on the camping trip? I'm definitely going for the camping and 90% going on the backpacking as well :D

Yeah, I know it is taking us some time to formally fix the dates for the meet up. We are just in the process of confirming things with some external organisations.

As soon as we have all our Ikrans in a row, we shall be shouting the confirmation from the top of Iknimaya.:)

Alan