Staircase Rapids — Saturday, Apr. 14, 2012

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

We decided to take advantage of the decent weather we had and go for a hike to stretch the legs. I decided to ask my eight year old where he wanted to go hike and he said "We haven't been to Staircase in a while." It was decided. We loaded up a daypack and headed out. We actually didn't hike too far. We went down the rapids trail (toward the Four Stream junction taking the trail to the right after you cross the bridge by the Ranger Station) to Beaver Flats. We took the quick detour to the right along the way to go look at where the old rapids loop bridge washed out years ago, then we headed back to the main trail and continued on to Beaver Flats. We stopped there and had lunch, skipped about a thousand rocks on the river and then headed back to the Ranger Station. Not much of a hike, distance wise, but still a really great family outing. The river rapids are really impressive right now with the spring runoff. There was quite a bit of debris on the trail and a few blowdowns from the winter storms, but nothing of any difficulty to get around or over. There was still a few inches of snow on the trail and several spots where it was very slushy so waterproof shoes are a good idea. Makes me think it's about time to get out my pack and go for a "real" hike :-).