Duckabush River — Friday, May. 3, 2002

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

We were meant to have a fine weekend. I've heard the low lands had cold windy and even snowy weather last weekend, but the Duckabush was our private Shangri-La! We had no precip, partial sun, no wind and fairly warm temps. We saw an elk, fresh bear sign(though no bear) at around 8 miles and no humans in the whole valley except a few short distance day hikers. We made 10 mile camp, though the last half of the trail was unmaintained. A fair amount of downed trees and three major washouts. We lost the trail at two of the washouts for a while. There was a washout between 7 and 8 miles which sort of was the trail. After wandering the shrubs for a while I finally walked through the stream about 500 yards to find the trail exiting out of the stream bed. Absolutely no sign of snow or even recently melted snow though. Nice campsites about every 2 miles, but bearwire only at 10 mile camp. Just before 10 mile camp the trail is obliterated for about 50 yards. Altogether a fine experience!