The early morning in the Olympic Rainforest can provide views of mist and trees and ridges … my favorites. The best part is that in the Olympics (if you’re lucky), these morning mists can burn off by mid-morning and you can have a clear sunny day. This is the North Fork Quinault river … the river is over by the other bank at this point. It did turn out to be a sunny day, after about 10:30 AM or so.
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 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).
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).
The Olympic National Park has some unique challenges for trail maintenance workers. The extremes of rainfall mean that it can be difficult to keep trails from either washing out or becoming deep trenches from the erosion. In some of these places, puncheon is used … often to cross swampy or boggy areas. In this case, the North Fork Quinault trail is climbing enough that the surrounding area isn’t boggy, but the trail would have worn down a ditch … with the trail in the bottom.
The North Fork Quinault is one of the main access trails into the central area of the Olympic National Park. The Quinault valley is prime rain forest and there are numerous small (often unnamed) streams crossing the trail. The one above was one of these unnamed streams. I was pleased with the way the water blurred with this hand held image.
The image below was taken a few miles further up the valley, close to Low Divide … the point where the trail quits climbing and drops down the a junction with the Elwha River Trail at Chicago Camp. It shows Seattle Creek … which drains off of (wait for it) Mt. Seattle.
