Category: Backpacking

Trail Variations

Elwha Basin

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.

Well-maintained (and well used) Trail in Olympic National Park.
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Yes, we were a little nervous…

Yes, we were a little nervous…

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.

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Happy Hollow

Happy Hollow Shelter

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.

Happy Hollow Outhouse

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Hart Lake – at Risk

Hart Lake – at Risk

Regular readers may remember recent posts showing some of the areas that have burned in the Olympic National Park from the Bear Gulch fire. While burning primarily up the valley of the North Fork Skokomish, the fire has jumped across the Duckabush River valley and is burning a section of forest just east of the Hart Lake area. Since most winds in the area blow from the west or south, hopefully the fire will not spread over to the Hart Lake vicinity. (Fingers crossed).

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