Sometimes it’s really worth getting your feet wet, even if the water is really cold. In this case, wading across this stream (and a little hike uphill) gave us the perspective below. Well, that little wading plus a few days hiking. These were taken in Martins Park in the Central Olympic National Park.
These photos were taken from the Graves Creek Bridge on the East Fork Quinault trail in the Olympic National Park. I thought the difference between the two was interesting … you just wouldn’t likely think the photos were taken the same spot. The difference between the two ‘sides’ is purely a result change in gradient … there isn’t any dam or blockage below this point on the creek.
There’s a wide range of trails in the Olympic National Park. Some are well maintained (see below), and some and not so well maintained (like this one). The above image shows the ‘trail’ running above the Elwha Basin to the Elwha Snowfinger and Dodwell-Rixon Pass … one access point for one of the classic backcountry traverses of the Olympics (the Bailey Range Traverse). While I would have liked the basin trail to be well maintained … while we were hiking it … if all the trails were wide and well-maintained, there would be much larger numbers of people hiking them. There are few areas where one can still experience the solitude of nature … lack of trail maintenance protects this solitude. Trail maintenance just needs to be fully funded … there are millions of dollars of maintenance that is backlogged. The trail below is a section of the trail to the Enchanted Valley … another extremely popular destination.
On a dayhike up to Martins Park above Low Divide (between the Elwha and North Fork Quinault river valleys in the Olympic National Park), we saw this black bear browsing the fresh greens. We were a little nervous … the above photo was taken with a normal lens … not a telephoto. But we had seen black bears a number of times before and hadn’t found them aggressive. Regardless, we didn’t stay around to do any bear watching. Our nervousness increased quite dramatically when the bear followed us for a mile or so down to near where our campsite was at Low Divide. We took special care to bear proof our food that night.
Happy Hollow Shelter is located 26.3 miles (42.3 km) from the Whiskey Bend trailhead of the Elwha River trail (it is the last shelter along the Elwha trail). You can see from the overgrown condition of the trail that this area of the Olympic National Park doesn’t get a lot of traffic. The shelters are provided for emergency use only … and one should expect to share any shelter in the Olympics with a large population of mice.
Below is the Happy Hollow outhouse. I don’t think I need to provide any additional comments, except maybe privacy is not guaranteed.
