After a couple of days of hiking up the valley, we returned to the abandoned Dosewallips Campground on our way back to the trailhead. While the campsites that are close to the river are used fairly frequently, those areas away from the river are overgrown and in a state of decay. The middle photo shows the remains of the road running through the camp … just a trail now.
After two days of hiking with our full packs, we enjoyed a day of hiking with minimal weight. We spent a few hours hiking up the valley into the meadow areas created and maintained by winter avalanche activity. It was late enough in the year that the only flowers were those growing in moist areas along streams … or a few scattered columbine here and there.
The Press Party Point (final image) is our reference to one of the iconic photos from the Press Party Expedition … one of the first (non-native) traverses of the Olympic Mountains back in the 1890’s.
It’s a joy to hike a trail that carries you through miles of pleasant old growth forest. This isn’t the rain forest of the west side of the Olympic National Park, but old growth in the drier east side valley of the Dosewallips (in this case the North Fork).
The understory of salal and rhododendron is particularly pleasant to hike through. It’s just visually and experientially enriching.
Getting ready to hike up the North Fork Dosewallips trail, Olympic National Park from the old car campground. We don’t generally get going very early in the day … we tend to wear out early enough that there isn’t any point in a very early start.
By the way, the privy is visible in the background. However, the park had closed it … a steel cable ran across the door. We assumed it was due to concerns with Covid and the lack of any cleaning maintenance. Sorry silly if that is what it was. No one ever using one of these back country privies has ever had the impression that they are sanitary. Quite the contrary.
Recently took a 5-day backpack trip up into the Olympic National Park. When we got to the Dosewallips River trailhead, there were horses and mules being loaded up. We expected they were going on a pack trip across the park. Later, we talked to them in camp our first night … they were volunteers from the Backcountry Horsemen, taking tools (chainsaws and brush cutters) and fuel in for a volunteer group from the Washington Trails Association working on the N Fork Dosewallips and Graywolf Pass trails.