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.