ELWHA RIVER TRAIL TO HAYDEN PASS

WHERE:  Follow highway 101 west from Port Angeles Washington about 15 miles (rough guess there) looking for signs pointing to an entrance to Olympic National Park.  Follow this road which travels just east of the Elwha river until you pass the entrance fee station then follow the signs to the Whiskey Bend trailhead.  This road forks off to the left about two miles after the entrance station then goes for another 5 miles along a sometimes scary dirt road to the trailhead where the road ends.

THE TRAIL:  Anyone who has hiked along the trails on the western side of the national park will not be too impressed with this trail especially in the first 8 miles.  There are some beautiful spots however like the Lillian River Canyon which has several nice campsites.: The forest here does feel like a rainforest.  Lots of old growth Cedar Hemlock Douglass fir, Maple and alder.  The first section does go through an old burn area where there are many young trees as well as a few old ones with black burn marks on the lower trunks.  I left the trailhead at 6:30pm and made it to Mary's falls, eight and a half miles up the trail,  just before 10pm.  This is the first camp on the river (the first 7 miles stay several hundred feet above the river and follow along low ridges for much of the hike).  The first day included a cabin along the trail and several side trails going down toward the river that lead to more old cabins.  These trails are only one to two and a half miles from the trailhead.

On day two I hiked only another 8.5 miles to the Hayes river guard station seeing no one along the way.  The trail passes a couple more old cabins along the way including the Hayes river ranger station.  There is also a shelter here that has walls on three sides with flat wooden benches to house up to 5 people during inclimate weather.  There are three campsites at the near the guard station and one about half a mile before it.  All but one are on the river.

On Saturday I hiked up to Hayden Pass (elevation 5,847).  Once you get above the no fire zone at 3500 feet the views become more frequent and I began to cross many steep meadows with trickling brooks running throughout making for many muddy crossings.  The appearance of Alaska Cedar also signify that you are in an area that gets significant snow in the winter.  There wildflowers were starting to bloom on these meadows despite the late winter.  There was Lupine, Heather, Beargrass and Indian paintbrush already blooming.  There were the Olympic Marmots in the steeper rocky chutes that only live on this peninsula.  One of them stood on its hind legs on the trail 25 feet in front of me and just looked at me until I started walking where it scurried into a hole right beside the trail and went into a labyrinth of tunnels where it probably had some rocks it could move to block the way from predators like bobcat.   Soon after this I saw a large 300 pound black bear just above the trail.  It looked like a large rock at first in the sun but I froze immediately after and it must have sensed a change down trail as it turned to look at me.  That cinnamon colored snout was aimed right at me and it did not move at all:  Usually when I get this close the run away so I was a bit nervous that this one did not.  I was upwind so it didn't get a good whiff of me hence I decided to talk to it while slowly backing up and looking slightly away.  It was quite an adrenaline rush I was clueless about what the bear was thinking and that bear was stoic.  As I got out of sight I pulled out my camera hoping I could salvage a picture but it was gone by the time I came back down the trail.

After passing through several more muddy sub alpine meadows on relatively steep inclines I made it to the pass where there is a nice view of the Dosewallups river beginning from the snowfields east of Sentinel Peak.  Views to the south and west cover most of the Olympic mountains including the Glacier covered Mount Olympus.  If you climb up a rocky ridge you will get a better view to the north is available.   I spent over an hour at the pass admiring the brilliant views all around:  The Dosewallups meadows below snowfields above glaciers on Anderson, Carrie, Christie, and Olympus nearby and further out.  steep mountains rising from low elevations all around.  Eventually I pulled my head away from the eastern views and started back down the trail knowing I would still have many more opportunities to admire the views to the west and south.  Of course this time I had my camera out knowing full well that a bear seeing me on the way up will stay well off of the trail to avoid another confrontation.  Of course the camera (a digital SLR became quite a nuisance trying to maneuver through the muddy trail sections without immersing myself in natures muddy bounty.  As I began to regret that I would be enjoying only a couple more open views I reached a bend in the trail 10 feet from a little brook crossing exiting the trees to reveal the western mountains one more time.  At the same time I saw a big black object nibbling on the grass just across the creek about 30-40 feet from me.  The bear was facing the other way and I froze as I took my camera's lens cap off and turned the camera on.  I decided to back up 10 feet to get behind a tree  Where I took some spy shots peaking the camera around so the Bear wouldn't see me.  They see movement well however so it is hard to peak around the tree when it was facing me.  I got two good pictures and one blurry picture as the bear was facing me and drinking from the creek.  This one was blurry because I kept my head to close to the leaves in order to remain concealed thus forcing the lens to focus on the leaves.

The rest of the hike down was uneventful until I slipped off a log bridge and jammed my finger as I grabbed the log to prevent myself from following into the rocky stream.  The next morning I left at 3:30 am to hike in the moonlight for the long 17 mile hike back to Whiskey Bend leaving me with great memories of first hike on the north side of the national park.