Enchanted Valley via East Fork Quinault River, Anderson Pass & Anderson Glacier — Friday, Sep. 19, 2014

Olympic Peninsula > Pacific Coast

We left Friday am to Enchanted Valley 13.5 miles in. We ended up in the middle of a heard of Elk bugling, so many huge trees(we were among giants for sure). We camped in the valley next to the river, Sat we headed up to Anderson Pass. That hike is awesome, lot's of ripe berries and fall colors taking place. We got to the top of the pass and headed up another mile to Anderson Glacier. Right after we started on the trail we encountered a nice 250-300 pound Black Bear enjoying lots of berries. It stood up to let us know he was there and we stood our ground and talked with it. We were about 15' away, so we slowly stepped back, always facing the bear. We had no issues, it was getting ready for winter, good looking coat. The glacier was amazing, snow was almost gone but the lake it had created was beautiful. We saw a Golden Eagle on top flying around. We headed down as the sunset, pretty amazing place. We saw 20 Mountain goats as the day ended. On the way out we saw the Elk another time bedded down, some sweet little Mountain Beavers, Woodpeckers, and a Bald Eagle to guide us back. The last couple miles of the trail seems to go forever. The weather was heavy mist Friday till noon and the rest was bluebird conditions for us. It really is Enchanted, the Chalet looked good off the river. Spend a couple days in the best part of Olympic National Park, life changing for sure.