My friend and I did a two night backpacking trip out here, getting a late start on Friday evening from the West Elwha trailhead.
I'm very glad we came in from the West Elwha trailhead — since so much of this route is on a roadbed, it was great to get a few more 'trail' miles in! The trailhead is teeny tiny (room for three cars) but it is very legit and well signed (no facilities). The first 0.5 miles of the trail runs through easements on private property, so you are essentially walking through folks' backyards. It felt a bit weird, but is well signed.
The trail is quite nice with classic Olympic forest views of dense drippy trees and sprawling sword fern. There are a few great views of the Elwha, too. The busted bridge is not too bad to cross. There is rope holding the handrail in place so it still feels safe. Altair, despite being eaten away by the river in places, was still spacious and has plenty of picnic tables to stop at.
After that, the route is almost entirely on the road, which was in pretty great shape aside from a washout or two. Great views of the river from the old dam and along several pullouts. The road was snow free, but some patches of snow showed up in the last mile or so along the trail to the hot springs. A reminder that the Daniel J. Evans Wilderness boundary starts at the old Olympic Hot Springs trailhead (2.4 miles from the springs) and bikes or any other wheeled devices are not allowed past that point. On our way out, we saw some bikes chained up at the boundary, but also saw several groups biking in past it.
The hot springs themselves were ... interesting. It feels very surreal to walk through a snowstorm and come upon idyllic steaming pools tucked into the forest. Though the strong sulfuric smell and sickly green discoloration dissuaded me from taking a dip, I did dunk my cold hands in for a bit and the water temperature was amazing (I promptly slathered them with hand sanitizer afterwards). We hung around here for about an hour and then hightailed it back down the road.
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