Enchanted Valley

The trail is in excellent shape to Enchanted Valley. All bridges are in and only a few muddy spots after the hot and dry weather we have been having. The valley was as beautiful as ever, and very peaceful mid-week. We saw no four-legged wildlife, which marks my first time hiking in the Olympics and not seeing either bear or elk. (Seems like there was an elk herd that was resident in the valley 10+ years ago.) The payoffs were the almost bug-free conditions, the gorgeous weather, and the unending scenery. We did day hike up beyond the O’Neil pass trail junction, going as far as a bleached out old log lying across the trail in the basin just below Anderson Pass. This seemed like a good stopping point. We never encountered snow, and it appeared that the only lingering substantial “on-trail” snow patch was on the switchbacks just below Anderson Pass. There was one difficult stream crossing (due to high run-off) that turned around a party with children and puzzled us for a while, but it was navigable and doubtless will only improve in the coming weeks. A wonderful mid-week trip and June hike!