I had vacation time, and the rest of my family was out of town this week. Had originally signed up for a North Cascades climbing trip but as the date approached the forecast predicted rain with thunderstorms. The climb leader cancelled two days out.... What to do? I looked around and found that the Olympics were going to clear up first, so I headed up there with my guidebooks and a couple things in mind.
Still rainy on the first day, so I stayed at a hotel on Lake Quinault and explored around there a bit:
The giant spruce is alongside the lake near the ranger station:
On the north side of the lake is an old homestead.
A grouse family was also visiting. Mama didnt mind the rain, but the youngsters preferred the front porch.
From there, I wandered down a little nature trail that passes through a grove of huge maples.
Spent the evening enjoying the storms over the lake.
The weather was clearing the next day so I headed up the nearby Humptulips river road to the Humpnoochee Pass trail(this "pass" separates the Humptulips and Wynoochee drainage). Trail was well maintained and even had some early season mushrooms from the recent rains.
About a half mile up this trail, I found a strange thing...What do you think it is? I am calling it a boomer door. It's about 6 inches high. Like the little fairy doors you see in parks around town. Why would some human make a door like this out here? More astonishing is the fact that it's being used. In the second pic you can see I opened the door with my pole and at the entrance was a little pile of freshly cut vanilla leaf. Someone was busy preparing for winter.
The trail ended at an old decommissioned road(FS220), and from here it was a four mile hike NW on the abandoned road to my goal for the night -Elk Lake, just inside the SW corner of the National Park, adjacent to the Colonel Bob Wilderness. Looks so pleasant and easy!
- start of FS road 220
I had heard reports that the abandoned road was pretty bad, but I am a confident bushwacking type and had no concerns. Soon I stuck boot in mouth because it was a bloody exhausting nightmare! Took me four hours to travel four miles. It was a combo of heavy alder/vine maple bushwack with some treacherous diversions across sketchy slides where the road had slid away to far below.
Here is a view of my route about halfway along when I was still optimistic. You can see some of the road cut. The lake is just behind the summit left of center. One of the double humped summits on the far left is Colonel Bob:
I ran into a pair of young wildlife biologists. They were collecting data from recorders nearby, with the main focus of monitoring spotted owl habitat. I told them about the boomer door and where to find it. They had no explanation.
Finally found the old trail( it is no longer on maps), and made my way down to the lake just when it started to rain. The area sees little use. There was some remnant tread around the lake, heavily overgrown with huckleberries.
The next day I wrapped up all my wet stuff and just bombed down the hillside 2500 feet to the river road and walked the FS road 4 miles back up to my car at the TH. Cant really recommend this trip but it has some features that I now think back on fondly.
strawberries
