I have often posted images of the trail up the North Fork Skokomish … or showed images of the area. I was going through photos and found this nice pair of photos about 5 miles up the trail, where it crosses a small creek. A National Park crew was installing a new bridge. With hand rails on BOTH sides! Quite nice.
As much as I enjoy the high country, this time of year there just isn’t much access available in the Olympics. So it’s the lowlands. There are plenty of good hikes that are (mostly) snow-free all year, with pleasant views and interesting features. This trail runs out of Dosewallips State Park on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. The Nurse Stump was amazing and the small creek provided a wonderful sound track.
These two images are from the Staircase area of Olympic National Park in autumn. I enjoy the autumn hikes when the weather is clear … there aren’t nearly so many people on the trails as in the summer and the yellow of the leaves makes a nice splash of color.
This lovely little falls is located on the Constance Pass trail in the Olympic National Park. There are so many of these falls scattered throughout the park that most have no names. This stream is an unnamed tributary to Sunny Brook.
Some spots in the high country are easier to get to than others. The ones that are easy to get to tend to be crowded. The ones that are harder to get to are … well, harder to get to. The result is that there typically are a lot fewer folks and the impact is less. That also means the trails tend to be rougher … or sometimes look nothing like a trail so much as a track through the meadows. Martin’s Park is one of those … it sits in a remote portion of the Olympic National Park with a minimum of a 16 mile hike to get there (and that’s the short route). There are quite a few folks that hike close to it … it sits near the Low Divide, on one of the main routes for those wishing to traverse the Olympic Park. The crossing now runs just about 50 miles … so those doing the hike tend to not have a lot of extra time for side trips. It’s beautiful country, though.
