This is the Mt Elinor trail in the southeast corner of the Olympic Mountains (outside the Park). It gets a lot of visitors … both in the spring for folks warming up their snow climbing skills … and in the summer when the trail is very crowded and gets pretty trashed out from thoughtless hikers.
Just for folks that don’t live in (or visit) bear country: A bear wire is a convenience for backpackers to hang food to keep it up and out of reach of bears. A heavy steel cable is run between two tress about 12 to 15 feet off the ground. The best ones have pulleys and cables to run your food bags up the the wire, the old versions required you to have cord or rope to throw over the wire. One of my gripes is that the maintenance of bear wires is lacking … the Olympic National Park has neglected the bear wires in favor of requiring (or strenuously recommending) bear proof canisters. These typically weight about 2 pounds. When you are getting up in years, that two pounds can make a pretty big difference in the pleasure of the trail.
This trail sign was on the Aurora Ridge Trail in the Olympic National Park. The trail is visited very infrequently … and the maintenance showed it. I only hiked a short section, there wasn’t any vista or destination within my dayhike range, so I just climbed up to the ridge line and then along the ridge for a mile or two before turning around.
Good idea for a series