Since I get so much benefit from hiking the trails of the Olympic National Park, I decided to give a little something back to the park this year and volunteered to do five days worth of trail maintenance. The park volunteer coordinator teamed me up with Dave the trail guy and our mission was to clear the upper portion of the Elip Creek trail of brush and any blowdown timber across the tread. We managed to hitch a ride for the first six and one-half miles of the North Fork Quinalt River trail on a park service mule train that was bound for the Low Divide. We hopped off at the Elip Creek junction and it was our turn then to be the pack animals. Hauling our camp gear as well as gas, oil, chainsaw, and other maintenance accessories, the first two miles or so was pretty strenuous as it is a fairly steady and steep ascent through the forest. This part of the trail has the usual attractions of large trees, nurse logs, interesting fungi, and things of this sort. The grade then moderates somewhat and eventually breaks out into the sub-alpine zone where it is generally easy traveling with many small ups and downs. Some nice scenery here as well with views to Mounts Zindorf, Seattle, and Noyes. Before we got there, the trail was overgrown with lots of huckleberries, heather, and a variety of other small bushes and trees. Four days of hard work later, we had the top two miles of the trail cleared to the junction with the Skyline Trail. Dave said another work crew will come in and do some brushing on the lower part of the trail in the near future. There's no snow left on the trail, but there's plenty of heather and beargrass in full bloom now. Several small ponds along the trail are jam packed with tadpoles and we encountered one bear near Kurtz Lake. He fled as soon as he saw us on the trail and that was the last we saw of him. The bugs are moderate. The tread on this trail could still use some work but at least the brush is cut way back so navigation is much easier now. This was a real rewarding hiking/work trip; just imagine all that could be accomplished if all of us trail users pitched in a few days of volunteer work each year.