Kloshe Nanitch — Wednesday, Jul. 7, 2021

The weather in Seattle was still too hot for me to hike there, so I headed west toward where nature's air conditioning was moving in from the southwest.  I live in Seattle so had a short drive to catch the second ferry run of the day from Edmonds to Kingston.  The ferry was not full.  Traveled west thru Port Angeles and about seven miles west of Lake Crescent turned right onto W. Snider Road.  I drove to the end of the road and the parking area.  A sign on the road says "Discovery Pass Required."  The WTA trail write-up says Northwest Forest Pass, but that may be for people who drive to the top (which is an option).  I suspect the lower portion of the trail is on DNR (Department of Natural Resources) land, while the upper part of the trail is on USFS (United States Forest Service) land.  For those who want to drive to the top, the road takes off thru the USFS cluster of buildings along the road to the trailhead.  After a short walk on the road-trail along the Sol Duc River, the trail starts on the left and heads uphill.  Part way up there is a lot of salal invading the trail, so lots of work available for trail crews.  The growing salal is "pushing" hikers to walk on the downhill side of the trail, which causes the trail to slowly creep downhill (yuck).  I hiked 3.5 miles up the Kloshe Nanitch trail to a trail junction.  The shortest way to Kloshe Nanitch is to turn left at the junction.  Instead I continued straight until the trail ended at an intersection with a ridge trail.  I turned left and in about half a mile got to the gravel road that leads to a cell tower sight and an old lookout building.  After checking them out I headed west on the road to the Kloshe Nanitch viewpoint. The clouds had not gone away and so I was not able to verify the fantastic views that other hikers have reported. I found the short connector trail on the east of Kloshe Nanitch and so descended back to the trailhead.  I was the only person on the trail that day, but when weather turns clear there must be lots of hikers, because the trail has seen lots of foot traffic.