Enchanted Valley
Apr 17, 2004
- Type of Outing
- Day hike
- Read More in our Hiking Guide
- Hike: Enchanted Valley
- Region: Olympics -- West
- Avg Rating: 3.33
- Be Aware Of
- Blowdowns
- Washouts
The husband and I were staying at Lake Quinalt Lodge to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary and decided to hike into this trail as far as we could in a limited time. The trail goes for about 26 miles, but we made it about 4 1/2 miles in before turning around due to deteriorating trail conditions.
When we started, the day was mostly sunny and fairly warm. The trail has been rerouted at the beginning due the rebuilding of the Graves Creek bridge. But we kept an eye out for the signs and hanging tape and found the rerouted trail with no problems. The temporary crossing over Graves creek is a flattened log and railing which was no problem to cross.
The first few miles of the trail is on an old abandoned road which gradually climbs through the Quinalt rain forest. There was one blow done, but the trail/road is in good shape. The forest did rain on us a bit at the beginning, but it dried up a bit as we headed up. We reached the Pony Creek Bridge in about an hour and marveled at the beautiful canyon and the river rushing through. There are a couple of nice camp sites near this area, one with especially great beach. access to the river below. From there on the trail, the trail conditions got worse as the trail meanders through the forest next to the river. There were several blowdowns to climb under or over and a pretty severe trail wash-out about 1/2 mile from the bridge. We managed to get over that. Navigated around another blowdown which forced us to go around for aways to refind the trail. The crossing at Fire Hole River is not hard if you have poles to maintain your balance as you cross the rocks/logs. The water is deeper than boot-top height so you have to be careful about where you step.
We walked next to several other nice camp sites right next to the river, one with log seating and an old campfire ring (a no-no in the National Park). We finally decided to turn around when we came across a bridge that had collapsed into a marshy area. We didn't see any way immediately evident around the marshy area and decided that we'd gone far enough for one day.
We only saw one other person coming out as we were going in. As we were heading back, there were larger groups of folks making the traverse to Pony Creek Bridge.
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