Category: Elwha River

Trail Shelters

Happy Hollow Shelter

The Olympic National Park has a number of shelters that were built in the 1930’s and later. They don’t get much maintenance and many are in danger of collapse under winter snows. They were originally designed for emergency use, or for those individuals who enjoyed the company of mice. Nowadays, they are just a scenic spot to have lunch … or to camp nearby. The one above is over 26 miles from the Elwha Valley trailhead, just above Chicago Camp … where most folks cross the Elwha and climb up to the Low Divide and drop down to the North Fork Quinault trail.

Trapper Shelter

Trapper Shelter is at 8.5 miles on the North Fork Quinault trail. There hasn’t been legal trapping in the area since the creation of the Olympic National Park in 1938 and the shelter is now just maintained for emergency use (if it gets any maintenance at all).

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Lake Mary

Lake Mary

Low Divide is the pass between the North Fork Quinault and Elwha river valleys of the Olympic National Park. The Divide is a large enough area that there are two small lakes (Margaret and Mary) named by the Press Expedition in the 1890’s. There aren’t a lot of folks hanging out by the lake … for one thing, it’s over 17 miles of hiking to get there (and even longer if you hike up the Elwha instead of the N Fork Quinault).

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Hurricane Ridge Wildflowers

Looking South

I recently did a day drive up to Hurricane Ridge In Olympic National Park. The road runs up into the alpine area, which makes it nice if you are carrying a bunch of camera equipment. The top photo is looking south into the center of the park and the Elwha River valley. The end of June is a good time for wild flowers, since most of the snow has left. I was able to find a trail where I was by myself and not packed in with all the other folks (they were mostly hiking trails near the main parking lot or Hurricane Hill).

The second image is Olympic Onion, which is described as being rare. I’ve seen it a few times and it smells strongly of onion. Since I’ve never seen it in huge masses, I’ve never harvested any for enhancing the flavor of my backpacking food. (although it sure would help)

Third image is larkspur … which competes with lupine in the blue/purple assemblage.

Olympic Onion
Larkspur

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Ah, a reminder of Summer

Reminder of Summer

I was going through some past photos and came across this one that improved dramatically when I spent some time with it in Lightroom. It was from a backpack trip up the Elwha River valley in the Olympic National Park a few years ago. A nice hike … especially since it was before the road washed out and so was 10 miles shorter than it would be today. Just one of the many unnamed streams.

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Middle Elwha

Middle Elwha

The Elwha River has been getting a lot of press lately. It is the site of one of the largest dam removal projects to date. Salmon runs are returning in numbers (miles and miles of recovered salmon breeding habitat), the delta is being rebuilt and numerous species (including bears and birds) are benefiting from the decaying salmon carcasses.

The section shown here is between the two dams that were removed (the Elwha Dam below this point and the Glines Canyon Dam above).

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