Bogachiel Peak — Saturday, May. 23, 2015

Olympic Peninsula > Northern Coast

My son and I camped at the Sol Duc Campground and began our hike from the Sol Duc Falls parking lot at 9:00 am. We expected the crowds being Memorial Day Weekend. Sol Duc Falls trail was well maintained and not to difficult. The falls were beautiful but we had hiked to them Friday afternoon when we first arrived and it was not our destination today so we passed by the crowds and took the trail to the right that leads to the deer lake trail. In about 0.1 mile we saw the sign post to deer lake which said 3 miles to deer lake but it is actually slightly more than that. For me,an asthmatic, out of shape, 52 year old who is not as agile as I use to be, this was a difficult climb. The trail was rocky, sometimes narrow and sometimes more like a creek bed. It was steep at times (at least for me) but there wasn't any time that I needed to scramble or use my hands to get up. I found varying reports for the elevation gains but they are all between +1530 to +1760 feet. I think that it may depend on whether they are counting the elevation to the lake only or to the trailhead to the High Divide trail. Either way, it may not sound like much to veteran hikers but for me it was challenging. My son seemed to have no problems at all. The last 1.5 is fairly steep and seemed a lot longer that it was. It was a beautiful day with some mostly clear skies and sun shining. There was quite a few people on this trail Many who looked as if they would be going on to other destinations and camping out for the night. As much as I would love to see the view from the high divide or other lofty heights I felt I accomplished something by just getting to this peaceful little lake. With my frequent stops to rest we didn't reach the top until just before noon. A disappointing hour a mile pace. We ate our lunch and rested at the top for about an hour and then made our way back. There were still several groups making their way up the trail to the lake. I was watching my gps closely and it was about 1 mile to the last Canyon Creek Campsite and about another mile to the next one. The last campsite was actually more than a mile something like 1.3 or 1.4. We reached sol duc falls and there was an abundance of people. Looked like there was a bus load from a photography glass or something. The trail was crowded back to the parking lot. Passing groups of people nearly every few minutes. We reached the parking lot by 3:00 pm. (Somewhere along the way I hit a wrong button on my camera and some of my pictures have a random date stamp on them. For some reason it is set to 2011 which is obviously wrong)