This is the abandoned car campground on the Dosewallips River. It makes a great spot to hike to and spend an evening or two while doing some dayhikes. It is also very interesting to watch the natural world reclaim the area. Stinging nettles are plentiful … that’s the majority of the ground cover in the near areas. But it makes a wonderful place to walk after dinner.
The Dosewallips River in early July is running high with snow melt in the high country. With our early hot weather, it is melting out quicker than expected … This image was shot from the Dosewallips Campground. There was a bend in the river that gave me a view up the valley some … I’m not out wading in the cold water.
The road into the Dosewallips Campground was washed out years ago. It makes a good warm up hike to start off the hiking season, mostly flat and a nice camp … the picnic tables are wonderful when you are out in the woods. I was out last week for a few days and the weather was perfect and the mosquitoes were minimal. A wonderful start to the summer’s hiking.
While the low country has mostly melted out, the high country in the Olympic National Park is still carrying a lot of snow. The snowpack is above average, so hiking in the high country is not going to be accessible early in the summer (many areas probably not until mid-July).
These photos are from the same day as my last post (River Bends). Nice day for a spring hike on the North Fork Skokomish trail in the Olympic National Park. The underbrush is still in winter mode… so you have more visibility at ground level. This section of the trail was originally a road until it was washed out about 50 years ago.
